this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Oof, sorry to hear that! ๐ญ
Fruit of stupidity. The town once had two libraries, overflowing with really old books. From what I've heard I'd risk many would be more than a century old or even older.
Then this hotshot librarian came to direct the librarian. Being an "author" he expunged the library of anything he deemed unworthy to be read or occupying shelf space, with a rage boner, as the two library buildings were condensed into one, with less than one tenth of the available area for book storage and display.
What was once a treasure chest for readers became a poor excuse for a reading room for newspapers.
I once tried to suggest moving towards ebooks, considering almost every person carries a decent ereader in their pocket nowadays and it was almost like uttering heresy.
So...
I work in a library, and I'm sad to say this sort of thing has been going around for a while... Our board (a bunch of ghoulish rich retired business men) wants us to call people "customers" instead of "patrons", and is looking for ways to charge them money.
It won't happen here, as the library is funded by the city, but I have lived where one of the biggest libraries in the country sits and you could take a book for free and read it in three or five days (can't recall the exact time) or choose to pay a few cents to request the book for a little longer, never exceeding two weeks.
That money was enough to get new works, replace overused copies, etc.
A library for profit already exists: we call it a book store.