- Capitalism and Alternatives -

there's little market for private libraries.

Posted by: Eric Johnson on August 25, 1999 at 11:10:37:

In Reply to: Public vs Private/ Uni Library posted by VJ on August 24, 1999 at 12:35:50:

: : : Depends, we have publically funded Libraries (theres a big public service element in Library work- liekwise local authority work), but there's private and university libraries out there...

: : Go for the latter. Gaurantee they'll have better books!

: Hmm - yeah if you want something on the dynamics of nuclear cooling systems then yeah possibly/ probably, if however you want a book for your kid (who is remember the future of this world in some peoples minds) then a I'd say a public library is gonna beat you hands down. The of course there's the spoken word, libraries tend to have quite extensive stocks, in many langauges, in a wide variety of fields (comedy to novels to learning the guitar) so another winner there for public libraries methinks. Other winner points:

: *. free internet connection - a _whole_ world of public libraries to tap into

: *. they're free, more abundant and more accomodating

Well, given that public libraries exist in such abundance, there's little market for private libraries. Who's going to pay for membership to a private library when they're already being forced to pay for the public library?

And, what incentive does the public library have to improve when they're going to keep receiving funding no matter what they do?




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