Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. …in fact, the social, cultural, educational, and research functions of public libraries in general; and regional libraries in particular, make them indespensible to civic culture.

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    p>Where else – and I’m talking about dead tree media, not just the web – can the average citizen learn how to learn?

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    p>Your tag of “pure stupidity” was damn appropriate (and an understatement).

  2. If so, is there money to be cut?  I was under the impression this was just an agreement that libraries would lend to each other’s patrons using their own town’s library cards.  I guess there are costs involved with shipping books from one library to another, but I can’t imagine it being a whole lot in te scheme of things.

    • Most of the costs in the regional systems are the salaries of librarians and staff, followed by building maintenance, followed by utilities.  Book and media acquisition is one of the shared costs that jump-started the various library networks, but is not a major motive in the proposed cuts.

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      p>The libraries, their staff, and their patrons simply have the least politically connected constituencies, particularly since the departure of William Bulger from the BPL Board (where he also quietly supported out-of-town systems on the Hill).

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      p>The powers-that-be – including those in Boston – have been starving library systems for over a decade, supporters such as Bulger have only managed to limit the damage.

      • …along the same lines as regional high schools?  Sorry, I hadn’t been aware these existed, but then I don’t live in the rural parts of the state.

        • Though I live in Boston, I often use my Belmont library card to access the Minuteman Library Network.  I would hardly call Belmont, Brookline, Cambridge, Concord, Dover, and Lincoln – to cite a partial list – “rural”.

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          p>The Minuteman network has access to records, databases, archived media, etc. free on line for which the BPL would charge a fee – if it could get it at all.

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          p>For the record, the inability of the Boston system to have these resources available is due to the cuts I mentioned upthread.  In many cases the folks at the BPL have been of great help in terms of referencing sources that I follow up on Minuteman.

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          p>This is somewhat tangental to the topic, but some of the wealthiest suburban schools in Massachusetts are regional high schools.

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