What do you say?

Seeing a steady rise of people using the library as we carry through summer break, so here's a quick thread from a staff member on little things you can do (for free!) to make life easier on staff. Let's go!

@certifiedlibraryposts

Certified Library Post

If any of y’all didn’t know, there’s a free online library, aka

https://openlibrary.org/

and I found like, twelve ebooks I’ve been wanting to read on there, and blasted through like three of them during the course of a boring-ass shift.

Guy there are books on magic on there.

There’s books on EVERYTHING there!

Wouldn’t this be bad for authors though? or is this like a normal library where they get /some/ money?

It’s like a normal library. Libraries can upload ebooks there and let people check them out through openlibrary if you have an openlibrary account, or it can point you to nearby libraries that have physical copies of the book for you to go and check out. If you check out books via openlibrary it counts towards the count of books checked out from the library that uploaded the ebook, and they can use it in their reporting and funding and stuff.

There’s like 150 libraries partnered with openlibrary so far.

They also have copies that you can check out if you are print-disabled.

You can also ‘sponsor a book’, which means you pay the cost of the ebook you want openlibrary to acquire, and then they can add it to their collection and let people check it out.

https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL26576A/Tamora_Pierce

I sure did!

And click on a title even if it says ‘no ebook available’ and scroll down, ‘cause sometimes that just means “all of the copies of ebooks are checked out right now but you can get on the waitlist when it’s back in”

This is part of the Internet Archive! I’ve posted about this before. Please go, it’s amazing. 

signal boosting because BOOKS

Oh!

what if public libraries were open late every night so that:

- children and teens who cant get home until a later time have a safe, warm, well lit, populated area to socialize, charge devices, rest, etc

- children and teens have a safe place to go to stay away from danger

- people who have jobs that take up most of the day would still have time ANY DAY OF THE WEEK to go use the libraries facilities (printing, computers, etc)

This is exactly what public libraries are trying to achieve - public libraries as a third place is a whole thing - it’s just that the funding isn’t there (yet).

Libraries need and deserve so much funding

I’m going to apologize if this post comes off as sounding very aggressive, but having just been through one of the most stressful experiences of my entire career in libraries: 

if you want this, you need to be at your local community government meetings. you need to be talking to your representatives.  you need to be out there Lobbying.

Just a few weeks ago, my library, me, my coworkers, we had to write letters, send emails, make phone calls, speak at council meetings, just to beg our aldermen to give us our usual funding. Which they didn’t even give to us last year.  Losing last year’s funding forced us to cut staff, hours, and all of our databases.  If we’d lost this year’s funding? two positions would have been gone and we would have likely had to close on Saturdays.  On Saturdays.  The day of the week most of y’all working M-F jobs actually have time to go to the fucking library.

And do you want to know how much money we were asking? We were asking for an increase of approximately 13 cents a person.

13.

Fucking.

Cents.

ACROSS AN ENTIRE YEAR.

No one seems to understand how libraries are funded.  It’s not just Free Stuff.  It’s your tax dollars being paid back into your community.  It’s crowdfunding.  The highest cost anyone in my community pays for the library a year is approximately $250.  Divide that up.  That’s just $4 a week.  That’s less than a coffee.  It’s the equivalent of purchasing about 10 hardcover books a year.  For that price, you could have access to every book that has ever been written, a place to go that’s not a bar, programs for kids, teens, and adults, educated staff that can help you find the answers to your questions, and so much more.

You want these late-night libraries?  You want all this stuff?  Start fighting for it.  Start showing up.  Start making phone calls.  It’s not going to come out of thin air.  Start fighting to erase the idea that taxes = evil.  Start fighting to spread the understanding that taxes are what help us build a better society.

Make sure the people who represent you know that you want this.  That this is where you want your tax dollars to go.  That this is what you want them to support.  That you are willing to see your tax bill go up a few more dollars for this.

Because otherwise?  None of this is going to happen.  Libraries are going to keep cutting their opening hours.  Keep cutting staff.  Keep cutting programs and databases and collections.

We NEED your support, and we need more than just a post on Tumblr.  We need to see people show up and speak out. 

Ever wondered how libraries are funded? Here’s a very informative post, along with a plea for our help.

Build A Home Library And We’ll Guess How Old You Are