I asked nypl to let me pay for a library card. they won’t issue. they will issue if I walk into a branch, but it’s a temporary card unless I can prove residency.
I don’t think they should have their budget cut but I would pay a subscription fee to access it from out-of-state.
Oh no. You know shit is really terrible when they cannot even afford to communicate at 8 bits. It’s 5 bits Baudot code. Capital letters only. They actually had to pay extra for @, #, and $. Thankfully, by 1870s, % was part of the character set. My heart’s with anyone who can’t just blast UTF-8 out wherever they can.
(Edit: In case you’re wondering why it has a weird gif attached to it: The Memelord, Musky Elon, has decreed that you can actually attach a shitty random gif FOR FREE. So of course any cash strapped institution will do so.)
This what happens when you elect a cop.
Devil’s advocate -
Isn’t 0.4% of a gigantic city’s budget for just library services really fuckin expensive?
Do they mean that their budget’s been cut by 50+ million?
It’s a gigantic library, #1 in the world by visitors by a lot, #4 by number of books, and they’re doing that in NYC in buildings that look like this and a bunch of the books are 600 years old or have George Washington’s handwriting on them, so it’s real fucking expensive.
It seems like a huge amount to me. 431 million dollars?
Isn’t 0.4% of a gigantic city’s budget for just library services really fuckin expensive?
No. You’re talking about something on the order of $3-5 / resident / year. That’s significantly less than residents spend on Netflix - $192 / resident / year - by comparison. And they get access to physical space and materials, rather than having to source their own hardware to access the service.
I was talking about the actual figures, which I couldn’t find. Did they have their budget cut by 50+ million?
I did a quick search and the library service in England costs 840 million per year for an entire country.
Just wondering what the budget is for a city like that, and why
I’m not sure this is the big gotcha you think it is. To serve a large population in a big relatively small area, you can easily achieve your goals with fewer, larger locations. This will allow a greater selection per location, which reduces the odds you will have to wait for the desired product to be shipped in. Moreover, land isn’t cheap in New York, whereas it may well be in smaller locales in England. Either way, a reasonable metric is cost per capita to provide services for a region, and England is only about 2/3 as expensive as New York. I suspect the cost of living is higher in New York than England, and it will certainly have an impact of the relative budgets of the two organizations. And we haven’t talked about the climate control requirements in England vs. New York because, frankly, I’m not too clear about the relative climate differences to say whether that’s a significant issue in the first place.
I did a quick search and the library service in England costs 840 million per year for an entire country.
Or roughly $12/resident/year. Admittedly, England has also been cutting deeply into their social services budgets, with library spending falling by over a quarter over the last decade. The UK has lost over a fifth of its public libraries during this time and continues to cut deeper and deeper into these budgets. So its per-capita cheap, but also a popular target for enormous budget cuts.
Compare that to the city’s police budgets and you’ll find a yawning gap that’s only growing larger with time.
Bloody hell are you a politician?! 😂 I’ve asked two simple questions about the post you shared and your response is a) downvote then b) dodge the question
It’s about a 13% cut in funding. Between the aprox. 207 libraries it cuts almost 300k from each leaving about 1.9 million per branch. These numbers are inflated in straight division like that because some of the libraries are not normal libraries, but research libraries which would have higher budgets so maybe around 1 - 1.2 million per regular branch. If you think that sounds like a lot because 1.2 million sounds like a big number, you’ve obviously never run a business.
If there’s 20 million NY residents and the budget is 435 million then that’s $21.75 per resident.
Fair enough. Still incredibly cheap.
As the cousin of a NY public librarian, fuck mayor Adams, but for so many more reasons than this.
Stop voting cops in as mayor’s, because at the end of the day they’re still just corrupt cops.
“So are you going to let me cum in your ass or not?”
I can’t tell if this post is anti-library or what
I always only see this, when i encounter that image:
Sorry for the distraction.
The picture included makes me think we should challenge the mayor’s hotshot skier son to a race down Triple Diamond run, and if we win the library will be saved for us punk kids to use on Sundays.
This is incredibly sad. Dammit.
why is it called ‘new york public library’ if it only serves downstate new york
that is less than half the state, I live in new york and there are no new york public library locations near me
are you really going to let us be beaten by new jersey? new jersey?
disclaimer
I have a public library 5 minutes away, (though I guess not a ‘new york public library’) this comment was made mostly for the funny and more importantly to shit on new jersey
this comment was written after staying awake over 30 hours and I am (very faintly) hallucinating the factorio express belts moving on my screen
Because it’s the public library system for the City of New York.
ah I probably should have realized that when writing the comment
As a general rule of thumb, “New York” refers to the city, unless otherwise specified such as “New York State”, or in a list/map that’s obviously only listing/labeling states.
It’s shocking to see the assault on libraries across Appalachia. Sad to see it’s a broader problem. For as little finding as they require they provide critical services. So many nasty politicos trying to win some points with the lowest common denominators of humanity must see them as an easy target.
Yeah, across the whole country even, I think people have been discouraged from reading in general. (Heck, it’s hard to feel like you have time to just sit and read a book…Audiobooks FTW…)
But I’m convinced this recent anti-library culture-war push is absolutely just a big PsyOp by private and public owner-class types.
Making it about drag queens and racy books on the surface is an easy way to rile up the uneducated, to remove public free access to information without commercial motive.
Further discouraging education by cutting off access to cultural and community events, outreach, and collections is a great way to isolate people back down to consumer-individuals and grow the hate-base.
Libraries are absolutely under attack for being easy targets too, you’re right. And often from the inside! Our local library district has an immensely corrupt board and executive staff. It’s likely seen as an easy stepping stone to pad a resume for big CEO jobs or public office. They can get away with a lot without many people really looking too hard…
is absolutely just a big PsyOp by private and public owner-class types.
Bro, I think people just don’t ready physical books anymore lol
Libraries offer far more than just books. They often double as community centers and offer lots of free services that could really help lower income demographics. They actually also offer audiobooks a lot of the time.
Besides all that, of all government services that are available, they’re cheap as fuck to operate comparatively speaking. The only reason to target libraries is because it gets the mouth breathers thumping. Nobody burning books (metaphorically and literally) has ever been on the right side of history.
Bro, I’ve only heard this line from people that don’t read
That’s why a lot of libraries let you check out ebooks and audiobooks through apps.
Properly funded libraries keep up with technology to better serve the community.
Nah they definitely still do. But reading stuff takes time, and many people in the US just don’t have that time to dedicate. So many people have to work long ass hours, and then they come back home and do you think they want to read? If they have a family or have a significant other, I think it far more likely that they would think it’s the best usage of their time to spend time with them, and in alot of ways it is. Lack of leisure time is the problem.
It’s happening in Oregon too. An attack on education.
I like the idea of public libraries, but honestly I just don’t have a lot of use for them in my life personally. Unfortunately the books I read are primarily published under Kindle unlimited, so they can’t be checked out of a library either in digital or paper form (not that many of the titles ever even have a paper copy). I don’t really watch that much TV or movies, and the ones I do watch are generally acquired from the high seas anyway, which is honestly easier than checking them out of a library. I support the concept and want them to be available to others, I just don’t personally feel like I get any value from them.
Most of my Kindle books are checked out from our library system, and if they are missing one book in a series or don’t have something available I can request and results have been pretty good.
There is a LOT of content for the Kindle at the library and I’m in Florida, can’t imagine we lead in this.
Amazon keeps pushing the Kindle unlimited but I can’t see the value yet. You like it?
My condo building has three stations where people can get a doggie bag to pick up their dog shit.
Two are outside the gate and can be used by anybody.
I benefit from people picking up their dog shit even if they don’t live here, so it’s worth it that my HOA dues go to keep those stations filled.
Same difference. Even if you don’t use the library you benefit from people in your city having access to the services that libraries provide. You also benefit by NYPD having $53,000,000 less to spend on weapons.
Yes, which is why I specifically said I support libraries and want them to be available to those of use.
The tenor of your comment was largely dismissive and negative, though. Regardless, apologies for the misunderstanding.
Does your local library support Libby?
Libby is an app that allows you to use your library card to check out ebooks, audiobooks, and digitized magazines. Free to anyone with a library card (at a participating library).
That’s one of several resources that a lot of libraries provide. Hoopla, as well, for shows and movies. And some have maker spaces, or 3d printers, or loan tools. And they usually have discount passes for local edutainment attractions (museums, aquariums, zoos, etc).
Some give you a month subscription to genealogy sites. Lots of stuff for little kids and families, usually activities or story times or craft classes. Classes for grownups too.
Tons of stuff at/from your local library. More than just books.
Cool story bro
It’s not always about you, mate. It’s a public service for all the other folks you can’t afford that shit otherwise.
Which is why I said I support them and want them to be available to others?
Eric Adams is a fucking piece of shit.
It was wild to see, but New Yorkers seem to love picking the guy who promises to be the biggest asshole to homeless people.
I had the homelessness situation described to me yesterday as such: When people see homelessness, they equate it to crime. But when people think of crime, they think of violent robberies and murders. This makes those people view the homeless only through a lense of prosecution. And this view and subsequent treatment only exacerbates the problem.
I know it’s a bad situation but they could cool it with the caps. Worse legibility and readability.
It’s part of the meme, tho.
If you have trouble reading capitalized versions of letters, the meme isn’t the problem.
People don’t like reading things that don’t look appealing. For example, people could read a paragraph in Jokerman, but it’ll be more difficult and they might decide it’s not worth the effort.
Also capital letters are less legible because we don’t just read letters, but rather their shape. And when in all caps, the letters all have the same rectangle shape.
ROFL.
