Last week, the New York Times reported on Library Systems & Services, a private, for-profit company that an increasing number of towns are contracting to take over their local public libraries. The company pares budgets and turns a profit by, among others things, replacing long-term employees with those who will "work." In the article, CEO Frank Pezzanite mocks "this American flag, apple pie thing about libraries" and ridicules the idea that "somehow they have been put in the category of a sacred organization." The problem? Local residents seem to believe there is something all-American - and possibly sacred - about this community institution. I know where they're coming from.
Public libraries represent the best American tradition of local communities chipping in for the common good, while advancing democratic values of free inquiry and universal access.
Through our local libraries, we all contribute to a public space where anyone can access the world's outstanding literature, music, and film; popular entertainment; the fruits of human knowledge and insight; computer and internet access; resources for jobseekers and students; edifying speakers; programs that engage schoolchildren; and story hours that delight the youngest members of our community. I'm never going to check out that new Janet Evanovich novel (or, for that matter, Bill O'Reilly's latest bestseller) but I'm damn glad my tax dollars paid for it to be available on the shelves. The common resource is bigger than any of our individual tastes.
Something of that is lost when a profit-driven company turns a community institution into a source of private gain. It's not just the likelihood that public employees earning middle-class salaries will likely be turned out in favor of less experienced staff - although I've written in opposition to that as well. Rather, it's the idea, articulated by American Library Association President Robert Stevens in response to the Times article, that for-profit libraries may not "remain directly accountable to the publics they serve." Or, in the words of the late historian Tony Judt, "shifting ownership onto businessmen allows the state to relinquish moral obligations... A social service provided by a private company does not present itself as a collective good to which all citizens have a right."
The point may be subtle when we're talking about computers and books on a shelf (no matter how critical a part of democracy) but it's hard to ignore a house on fire. This morning at Think Progress, Zaid Jilani describes the situation in Obion County, Tennessee, where fire services are funded by subscription fees rather than general tax revenue. Those who pay the fees can call the fire department to save lives and extinguish blazes. For those who can't or won't shell out for the service, Jilani's headline says it all: Tennessee County's Subscription-Based Firefighters Watch As Family Home Burns Down. Maybe there's something to the "American flag, apple pie" thing about public services after all...
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It has happened with prisons, and now they are lobbying for immigration laws that give them more prisoners (they are paid by the prisoner). Our hospitals and privatized charter schools and garbage collection and even our wars are privatized. Soon there will be a generation that has never known city or county or state workers.
As such, they must be protected from privatization, because any private entity could, by nature, be motivated to manipulate or distribute information to serve its own interests _ and to serve the politicians who defend such interests.
This idea is in fact fundamentally American, and Pezzanite's contempt for it is obscene. It is a reflection of the derision heaped by Neoconservatives upon knowledge for its own sake, upon curiosity, aesthetic value, the arts and the life of the mind. This derision plays well among Tea-bagger types who view it as common-sense, down-home scorn for 'elitist,' effete pretension _ and among Corporates, who view it as dangerous. The capacity to enjoy poetry from a book involves no consumption _ no money changes hands, and there's no way for them to advertise.
Even if you read something online, there's still a chance for someone to make a buck in the process _ but if you read a book, made out of ink and paper, it's just you and the book.
If you have any doubts about Libraries being bastions of patriotism, you need only consider the story of Joan Airoldi, the Librarian in a tiny, rural Library in Deming, Washington, where she faced down the FBI and denied them access to records showing who had checked out a