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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   31368 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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HISD to eliminate librarians and convert libraries into disciplinary centers at NES schools

Not worth a post as top level thread on it's own; but hilariously dystopic enough to post here. It's only one (admittedly large and important) SD, but this is the type of shit Margret Atwood would write about as a totally out there thought experiment.

Hopefully enough people get mad it stops there.

Libraries are obsolete. Books aren't expensive enough to justify them anymore.

Naturally institutions try to justify themselves and find reasons for their own continued existence. The proper response is to dismiss such efforts.

Libraries are a lot more than just a warehouse for books. They provide a lot of services, including research help, internet and computer access, rooms that can be booked (hah!) for various purposes, and often a variety of other programs (tax help, kids programming, etc.). Also, just because some books are cheap doesn't mean that borrowing books as no purpose. Some people are still poor, or just have limited space, so "books are cheap" isn't that strong of an argument.

Books are free if you have internet and know where to look.

I doubt that the particularly rare or niche books that can't be readily found online would be stocked in a school library.

A computer and reliable internet access aren't free (nor a VPN), and many people rely on the library for the internet (ironically enough).

I don't think the internet replaces what libraries currently do, even around getting books. Being able to easily browse, to find books you never even thought of... a physical space like a library is way better than the internet.

My VPN that I use for piracy is entirely free, and I very much doubt that even the poorest of Americans don't have access to cellphones, since even Indian beggars usually have a phone of some kind. Despite what manufacturers would want you to believe, a phone is a computer too.

I'm not claiming that all libraries are useless, I'm just claiming that the ones in schools are no longer anywhere near as essential as they once were.

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