The article I found was about a library in Detroit that was considering charging by the hour for internet usage. They interviewed two college students who talked about the difficulties patrons might have if the changes ended up being approved. The two college students interviewed said that although they could afford it and would be willing to pay, they realized that low-income families who don't have computers of their own could be hurt because of it. The article also explained that a large percentage of the people who use the computers at the library are businesspeople on their lunch break.
It was kind of like what we talked about in lecture today, where money needed to be saved and it was decided that the best place to make those changes was in the library system. The city was short about $5.5 million at the end of 2008, and they determined that they could save large amounts of money with staff cuts and charges for internet usage. In addition to the $780,000 that could be saved with the cuts, the city estimated that about $25,000 could be made by charging for internet use.
There was one quote in the article that I thought really summed up what we've been talking about in class: "It's a library and it's supposed to be an educational resource. I can still afford it, but for other people, if their tool is the library to use the internet because they don't have (a computer) at home, it's not fair."
To investigate this article further, you could find out the demographics of Detroit to find out the percentage of low-income familes who may not be able to afford paying for the internet by the hour at the library vs. the percentage of people who can. This would more easily reveal the overall success or failure of this new rule.After all, low-imcome families may use the library's internet as their only source of free information. Making them pay for it might push them away from the library, and backfire even further.
ReplyDeleteAnother way to investigate further would be to find out if there are any other places where they could make up for the money differences besides the library. Why did they choose the library and how much would they charge per hour? How could this affect the attendance of the library and would it really help out with the budget?
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