The dying gasps of NY Public Library Social Media : memes

[+] [email protected] -19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (8 children)

Edit: apparently people can't read as I already said I support libraries and want them to exist for those that benefit from them. This was never a 'it doesn't help me so screw you' type of comment. I was just sharing my experience of liking the concept, but failing to find any personal benefits and wondering if others experienced the same.

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.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Eric Adams is a fucking piece of shit.

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[+] [email protected] -6 points 4 months ago (4 children)

I know it's a bad situation but they could cool it with the caps. Worse legibility and readability.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

It's part of the meme, tho.

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 4 months ago

Can someone help them be on the fediverse and help set up indy fundraising that way?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I always only see this, when i encounter that image:

Sorry for the distraction.

[+] [email protected] -23 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It seems like a huge amount to me. 431 million dollars? I like parks and public libraries, they enrich society for everyone. I just would have thought the the library's budget would be less of the total budget.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If there's 20 million NY residents and the budget is 435 million then that's $21.75 per resident.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Fair enough. Still incredibly cheap.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

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

Edit - apparently there are around 3500 libraries in England, and the budget is twice that of New York, who have approximately 250 libraries

Dunno what people aren't understanding what I'm asking here 😂

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Adams sucks and it's embarrassing that people here elected him.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Election is next year

Might vote for brad lander

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Yeah we really don't like him. Was super bummed he won.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It's hysterical to hear right-wing commentary about how New York Democrats are socialist Marxist communist hippies when the reality has much more goose-stepping to it.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago

He won by 7k votes in an election with 21% registered voter turnout.

He won not by broad appeal but rather by apathy - his voters were engaged by fear mongering bait plastered on every news outlet about "crime" so they elected a goose stepping cop.

[+] [email protected] -47 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Idk about NYC, but my local library might as well rebrand to a homeless shelter. I love the concept of libraries, but if they aren't going to throw out the homeless people using it as a place to jerk off and do drugs, then idk what to do. I personally don't feel safe at ours, especially with my kids.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Not one of the responses to your comment seem to actually address the issue.

As usual, lemmy users are too busy trying to prove that they're way holier than thou and forget they live in the real world, not the idealized ones they make up in their overly politicized fantasies.

People not feeling safe due to homelessness at a library will not be using a library, they will not see value in the library because it's not a place they would go to. They also likely won't care about them enough to make additional funding a major concern for them.

If you want to procure more funding for a library, it needs to be a place people see value in.

You can work to solve homelessness and also improve safety of libraries, demonizing someone for not wanting to go somewhere because they're uncomfortable and feel unsafe is not helping support your issue.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Libraries are the last bastion of indoor public spaces. If you have a problem with people experiencing homelessness, do something about it. Don’t complain about the one remaining place that welcomes all people.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Seriously, have you considered that the same ideology that strive to choke public libraries, also the one that push people to homelessness? (At least unsheltered homelessness)

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, you shouldn't see homeless people. no one should!

(/s)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I mean, this but unironically? No one should be seeing homeless people because they shouldn't be homeless.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

But they do exist, something systematic must be changed for then not to exist. (Public housing, maybe?)

But until than, what?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

There's maybe two problems with this:

public housing is a part of the picture, and so are public libraries. The solution is certainly not to cut library spending just because there are homeless people using it
Thinking there being homeless people around is an issue that needs solving is itself pretty bigoted. Like, maybe you have a problem with people who haven't showered for a while? or people who use the library for personal activities because there are no better places for them to do them? But 'these people are a problem' itself becomes problematic because you've consolidated those qualities you find objectionable into a class of person, and that makes it really easy to forget/misplace/dismiss the humanity those people deserve.

It's a common attitude, so don't feel like i'm picking you out personally to scold. More people should be aware of how that attitude dehumanizes people experiencing shelter insecurity.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

Good! How else are we supposed to fund POLICE OFFICERS who get to PICK and CHOOSE what crimes or people to Investigate if we don't defund School and Libraries?

[–] [email protected] 99 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

You don't understand though, that's millions we could throw at building another stadium for a private individual to own and profit off of!

It's the same with the federal budget and NASA. It pisses me off to no end to see the only x-ray telescope we have get the axe so we can throw fucking Raytheon more money to bomb Palestinians.

DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT THE POOR BILLIONAIRES!?

[–] [email protected] 361 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Killing libraries is not about saving money, it's about restricting knowledge. Beware the leader that doesn't want the people to read.

[–] [email protected] 121 points 4 months ago (3 children)

If the city cares about aaving money theu would be buying useless military hardware for the NYPD. Tokyo, Seoul, Jakarta, and Osaka all do fine without blowing massive amounts if the municipal budget on military gear for their police departments. The NYPD "officially' had a 2022 budget over $5billion with aroind 36,000 officers. That's comparable to the entire military budget of Romania. Hell, the NYPD has field offices in 6 foreign countries.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago

If the city cared about saving money they would not spend millions of dollars to recover tens of thousands of dollars lost to turnstile hopping.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

I mean, I dunno, ACAB and fuck tha police and all that jazz, but 5 bil for 36k is 138k/each, and that's not too unreasonably bad for NYC cost of living vs the inherent danger and work regime of the job as a police officer in such a populous city.

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