I'm confused. I went to a local restaurant on a weeknight recently. It was packed. But my wife went Christmas (can I say that?) shopping and the stores were empty. I guess people have so much "stuff" right now, but their bellies always need to be filled (and most boomers don't know how to cook). As for libraries, maybe it is a good thing that people are returning to some simple pleasures, unless they ruin them too. Then again, it's not for books, but for free videos. Pretty soon they'll be asking for latte machines at the checkout desks.  I hope they stay away and leave intelligent folks alone.

NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"

Privatize the libraries and I guarantee many of these will not have to be closed. Libraries pay no taxes, have a limited staff so their major cost is what? Utilities? Only government could screw something like this up.

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is Not Pollution

"Economic Downturn Causes Budgetary Belt-Tightening".  This should be about as interesting as "Sun Rises in East: Sky Blue".

Yet, the friggin' MSM acts as though there were volcanoes erupting and vampire leeches arising from the sewers. 

What a pack of hysterical nitwits.  No wonder they're dying.

Women and children hurt worst.

I happened to have been at the local library yesterday, they got there December shipment of free DVDs, and the line was long. Everybody was trying to get the 'Dark Knight'. Rats, missed it by that much.

Around our area the recession is going just fine, locally we choose not to participate. 

There's get actually a place you can get books for free, and then return them for the next user?

Brian, thanks so much for bringing this fantastic new idea to our attention.

To begin with, who put Blockbuster out of business? Local libraries.

Who put the local bookstore out of business? Local libraries.

The local library is no longer needed to fill its original purpose of supplying books and other media, which were once scarce and expensive.

All forms of media are now affordable to all, even the poor. I have two closets full of childrens books that I can't even give away because everyone we know already has them or has so many they don't want any more. Used book stores are stuffed full of books that won't sell. New book stores have thousands of titles that they have to carry but will never sell.

The whole concept of the public library needs a radical rethinking. But no one will touch this sacred cow.

My biggest complaint about my local library? Most librarians are liberals and they don't carry the conservative and Christian books I want so I end up buying those (used if I can) from an online bookstore. Then they end up sitting in my house gathering dust because I can't even donate them to the library to put into circulation.

I could rant on but I need to run and pick up the DVDs I requested from the library so I don't have to pay for cable or watch commercials on TV.

I live in a small upstate NY town.  They have just finished renovating the old library.  They spent 18million (yes the m word) on this project.  They even have a robotic book return system.  They justify the cost of this thing - it will allow a human that used to collect the returned books to spend her time more wisely by answering questions from the public.  As in "Where can I find the free stuff".

All in all I dont blame the library for anything.  The nearest Barnes and Noble is 25 miles away.  The local mom and pop book store has about 30 books.  Most of those are by local writers....how many books do we need about the Adirondacks ?   

I recently left a job of 14 years at a medium size public library.

I watched the professional librarians slowly destroy that library. 

There is a pervasive mentality which dominates the whole field.

They no longer see the library as an educational, cultural institution; they
see it first as a social service and second as a kind of "Fort Apache"
fighting off the book burning know-nothing Christian Conservatives. 
Anyone who criticizes libraries or librarians are immediately denounced as
Nazis.

The logic which dominates the whole library community is that
the library should provide what ever the public wants for free and at all costs do not impose your values, instead of buying a copy a multipart historical documentry you buy 5 copie of th new Adam Sandler comedy the kids who want to use the computers to do their homework or use the Encyclopedia program will just have to wait for all the game players and rap video viewers to finish up.

If the public wants free DVDs of popular recent movies so be it, if they
want free internet access for e-mail, chatting, MySpace and porn give them what
they want. 

If the public wants bestsellers buy multiple copies.  I watched
them buy something like 50 copies of new Harry Potter books to manage the initial
rush of requests.  The first day of release the parking lot is full of
Lexus Suvs and BMWs, filled with upper middle class parents and kids picking up
there tax payer supported $15 perk.  A month or two later 40 of those 50
books are removed from the collection. 

      At least half the people using the
public computers have their own computers at home, for whatever reason they
would prefer to sponge off the taxpayer.Instead of them paying 70 cents a day for broadband they would rather have the taxpayer pay 20 times that amount to provide it for them free.  I did the math on our regular everyday heavy users and it would have been cheaper for the library in the long run to give them a new computer and pay for their internet.  

The dirty secret the con-game is how these librarians justify
their actions by quoting usage statistics.  "We are seeing a 10%
increase in teens using public libraries"   People hearing this think
"Oh, wonderful young people reading more...that wonderful library is
helping educate our kids"    In reality book checkouts are
down significantly,  it is teens playing games on the computer or
uploading dirty pictures or rap music links to their MySpace pages which is
responsible for the higher numbers.  

Local governments keep allocating money to these freeloader
magnets in the mistaken idea that more library use is an unquestioned good. 
You could easily double the usage of public library by simply completing the
current trend. Fill half the library with X-Boxes and Play stations and the
other half with new release DVDs.