Who Gains When Libraries Close?

If this were the 1970s and I were Robert Redford, I would find the conspiracy in the closing of libraries. I would follow the money to find who benefits from a nation of no libraries.

After all, it's the elected officials who want to cut library budgets: governors, mayors, city council members. And these people accept thousands of dollars from individuals and groups for their election campaigns. If I were a conspiracy nut, I would look into just who is giving these politicians their money to see if any of it comes from anti-library groups.

So what do libraries do that might threaten a greedy, Mr. Big?

Here is a good article which summarizes many of the great things that libraries do:

"If you're looking for something that your local library doesn't have—a hot new bestseller, that DVD box set of your favorite TV show, a classic picture book from your own childhood, or anything at all—you can go to the MAIN website and see if it's available in any of Morris County's libraries. If any of them have what you're looking for, they will send it to your library, where you can pick it up, in a matter of days. Your library will even call you when it gets there. It's easy, convenient, and absolutely free..."

So libraries loan DVDs and will send them to a branch conveniently closer to you. So this could threaten Best Buy, Netflix, Blockbuster... any company that sells or rents DVDs. And books. Barnes & Noble and Amazon are also prime suspects.

The same with the free Internet libraries provide. This could threaten any Internet Service Provider. $30 a month for each of you without us.

And CDs: could the Recording Industry Association of America be the evil agency out to seal our doom? Without libraries, you'd need to spend 99 cents for that downloaded GaGa fix or $10-$18 for that CD.

And News and Research. Libraries provide magazines and newspapers and online databases loaded with information that would be too expensive for you to purchase on your own. But we buy much of it in bulk at a discount. Could our villain be Rupert Murdoch?

In a country of no libraries, people would need to purchase all this information and entertainment for themselves with none of the benefits from the collective bargaining that libraries manage when they purchase through systems and consortia.

If I were Robert Redford in a 1970's movie or a crazy person who thinks he's Robert Redford, I'd be all over those governors and mayors until I found the truth. I'd find the evidence of the corruption that went all the way to the top. I'd find the conspirators and expose them and make them pay. But only after I had sex with Faye Dunaway.

The Future of Not Reading

based on the future of reading:

[powerful movie trailer voice] "In the not too distant future..."

I just got a message on my phone: Where is your PapIrus®?

[powerful movie trailer voice] "August Treadmill has learned a terrible secret..."

I'm August Treadmill. The PapIrus is my reader. I downed Harry Potter meets Anakin Skywalker, the tenth Harry Potter book, and loaned my reader to my mom. What I forgot is that downloading is a two-way street. PapIrus logs anonymous user data and periodically uploads info like my location and current page on the screen, and time powered on/off, stuff like that. What I didn't realize is that PapIrus has a contract with Google for data aggregation, and since I just logged into my Gmail account at work (one IP) and my mom is at her house reading Harry on my PapIrus (different IP), they know that I'm not the one reading the "book." Which is a violation of the TOA (Terms of Agreement).

[powerful movie trailer voice] "A secret which could cost him, ..mmm... $800!"

Two seconds later, my phone rings and my mom tells me that the PapIrus reader just flashed an unhappy face with the phrase "acceptable use violation" and then turned itself off. Shit. My $400 PapIrus with all my marketing ($120) and tech books ($250) just went down the crapper.

With the libraries gone, I'm going to have to buy a paper copy of Harry from India for $30 and have it shipped as porn since the importation of copyrighted texts is a felony. Maybe it'll be here in time for mom's birthday.

The libraries disappeared because people stopped caring. Yeah, people are stupid. That's why my car is loaded with cans of baked beans and a manual can opener. I'm just waiting for the end of the world. Bon appétit.

[If you are a company developing a portable e-book reader and would like to use the name PapIrus, I am willing to sell you the name for $5,500. I sure hope you're that gullible because I would have settled for $32.50. Ha, ha, ha.]

Library Conspiracy - The Movie

starring
Denzel Washington as Dexter Crane, MLS, MFS (librarian and forensic scientist)
and
Dennis Miller as the Expositional Eunuch
(I think there was an interview where Dennis said all his roles were as expositional eunuch whereby the hero would bounce theories off him, and Dennis would respond: "You think there's some person/company out there that's killing/burning/destroying/ these tenements/libraries/nuns? That's crazy." And he never has a relationship and sometimes gets killed or just disappears... ah, here is the source: For example, this is the way he describes his character in "The Net," the Sandra Bullock computer thriller opening today: "I'm like the expositional eunuch coming in the middle of the story. It allows her to vent all her paranoia. I nod, don't get (sex) and croak. That was my part. Bingo." - from IT'S MILLER TIME ON THE BIG SCREEN - WELL-READ AND OPINIONATED, THE COMIC SENDS HBO AUDIENCES REELINGAND NOW HE'S DIPPING A TENTATIVE FOOT INTO SUCH FILMS AS 'THE NET' Daily News of Los Angeles (CA) July 28, 1995 Author: Janet Weeks Daily News Staff Writer)

In one possible future.
As the social reform movement expanded to include libraries, more and more library buildings were being used as homeless shelters during and after hours ("after all, what good is a closed building when it could be used for helping the homeless") and librarians were being "reeducated" to support the new movement.
But as libraries were being reformed into "social networking" places, complete with condom distribution, clean needle exchange, private video and meeting booths, showers, free food kitchens, and medicinal marijuana clinics, the public perception of libraries was growing darker.

Until one day a homeless man is found murdered, his naked body displayed in a bizarre contortion, his hand clutching a Fodor's Amsterdam. "Personally, I prefer Lonely Planet," Dexter mused.

As Dexter goes deeper into an ever-expanding conspiracy, he confides his theories to EU, to which EU responds: "You think there's some company out there that's killing nuns, I mean the homeless. That's crazy."

But Dexter was sure. His training as both a library scientist and a forsensic scientist told him there was a connection. He just had to find. And that meant he would spend the day Googling for answers.

Imagine a company pushing an agenda to make libraries tools of social reform, but their ultimate goal is destroy the traditional mission of libraries so that they can move in and privatize all the libraries in the country so that they will be run under their rules and not by librarians.

This is what Dexter imagined. "Imagine an unabridged dictionary pressing down on a human face, forever," he paraphrased. "Someone has to do something to stop it. And that someone is me. As soon as I get back from lunch. Today's soup is cream of chicken with wild rice."