Libraries provide a number of important services for free. This infographic demonstrates how helpful libraries are to the public, and how often their services are used.
However, libraries are not cheap to run. Due to the current economic conditions, there has been talk of closing libraries to help cities. Fortunatley, there have been few library closings.
One of the most notable was the Philadelphia Free Library system, which was very close to closing, but fortunately, the Pennsylvania state legislature voted to keep the library open. Although it's quite possible that the politicians in the Pennsylvania state legislature where convinced they could keep the libraries open, the article says that they received over 2,000 letters in support of the library. I don't know if being prominantly featured on Boing Boing helped produce some of those letters, but I doubt that the national attention hurt the cause of the library.
One of the reasons that I bring up the importance, and reality, of library closing is that The Camden, NJ library closed today. It's interesting to see the similarities between the articles about the Philadelphia free library system, and what's happened in Camden.
According to the article, Camden had a similar political situation, where the city closed the library's branches, and focused on running only one library. However, the city found it completely infeasible, based on the article, to continue the library service
The (admittedly brief) article also states that Camden is "one of the nation's most impovershed cities. Most of it's families don't own computers." The statement about computer ownership being a basic part of wealth is interesting, and reminds me of a NPR story about Broadband adoption and Latinos. The Story Begins with a crowded public library, which has every computer in use. The story focuses on the comparatively low adoption of high-speed internet by Latinos, but the beginning shows how important libraries are to providing the service.
It's a paradox - the city arguably needs the library for the resources it contains, because of the poverty that is arguably characteristic of the city. Yet, the city cannot support a library that provides those resources to the people, and help those people in the long run. It is also worth noting that Camden's school system is controlled by the state of New Jersey, and that the city has severe problems with corruption, crime, and low graduation rates, on top of the poverty.
The image you chose to display was really eye catching and also very bold and blunt—I thought that was really great to get the point across and get me interested in reading the article. Your opening sentences didn’t have quite the same impact, in the future you could work to make the opening lines really impactful to draw the reader in as much as the picture did. In this entry, starting out by talking about the library that closed may have been a good, impactful way of appealing to readers’ emotions
ReplyDeleteBe careful on editing your posts…I noticed a “where” when it should have been “were” and also a few places where the sentences were not right away clear because the subjects were referred to in the paragraph before.
It might have been helpful to explain what Boing Boing was in the entry itself, as it’s not immediately obvious if the reader didn’t look at the external links.
Something to think about as you write future posts is what you want readers to take away from reading your blog, do you simply want them to be informed, do you want them to take action, etc. In the instance of this entry, what should it mean to me that a library closed? Why should I care? Or maybe, what could I do to make sure it doesn’t happen in other places?
Great job though, you’re doing wonderful with incorporating links and sharing great information!
Great topic (even though sad). I think it is interesting how much a library can impact a community. This blog post and the supporting articles do a great job of highlighting some of the problems related to our present economy.
ReplyDeleteSome things I would do for improvement include adding some pictures. Pictures not only make the blog more visually appealing, they make the post easier to read. It gives the reader a break from just text.
Also, try to incorporate some more media like video or sound. Being able to leave the blog, either physically to a site or just mentally to a video would do wonders to keep a reader interested.
Last thing, there were a few grammatical errors. Good job.