"The word 'public' has been removed from the name of the Fort Worth Library.Why? Simply put, to keep up with the times." --From the Media release on the rebranding of the Fort Worth Library
Fort Worth, you leave me speechless. You’re certainly correct about one thing. The public library is indeed an institution that has not kept up with the times. But given what has happened to our times, why do you see that as unhealthy? In an age of greed and selfishness, the public library stands as an enduring monument to the values of cooperation and sharing. In an age where global corporations stride the earth, the public library remains firmly rooted in the local community. In an age of widespread cynicism and distrust of government, the 100 percent tax supported public library has virtually unanimous and enthusiastic support.
This is not the time to take the word “public†out of the public library. It is time to put it in capitals.s "public" now a dirty word? Fort Worth has stripped the word from its local library.
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Comments: 10
Oh, the new thing is the libraries are now being called media centers....ick
'State governments across the country are laying off teachers, closing public libraries and parks, and reducing health care services, but there is one place they could get $23 billion a year if they could only agree how to do it: Internet retailers such as Amazon.com.
That’s enough to pay for the salaries of more than 46,000 teachers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In California, the amount of uncollected taxes from Amazon sales alone is roughly the same amount cut from child welfare services in the current state budget.'
I admit it is nice to 'avoid' those taxes, but then again I don't want to see all of these services go by the wayside.
The word public might have been viewed as institutional & restrictive? What the hell kind of logic is that?