My wife is a library administrator here in Indiana. Libraries are amazing. Aside from all of the free books, movies, music, audiobooks both physical media and streaming and ebooks, this is what our public library offers. This is a small city and this is not unusual for public libraries:
Free internet with a computer lab. You don’t even need a library card.
Board games and TTRPGs available for loan.
Free 3D printing.
Free laser cutting and engraving.
Games for multiple consoles.
An HTC Vive headset, a PS4 and an XBox for the teen room (although adults can use them too).
A playroom for babies and toddlers with all kinds of toys and things to climb on.
Kits you can take home to learn things like how to play the ukulele or how to crochet.
And, of course, like most libraries, meeting rooms for anyone to use.
A new branch is being built in another part of town and it will have a room with a lockable door and a sign-up sheet. One person will be allowed in at a time. Inside will be a washer, a dryer and a shower, all free to use.
On top of all this, the library is also willing to make deliveries to your home for free once a month if you can’t make it in or just don’t want to.
Librarians are also living Wikipedia/web Searches. They will happily look up any information for you that you could possibly ask. They will do all the research they can to help you. That’s part of their job and part of what they went to school for- did you know librarians are generally expected to have masters degrees in library science?
Public libraries are fucking incredible. They are not just for poor people or homeless people or whatever silly thing people might think about them. Go in and check out the one in your area. You don’t need a card to get in. You may not need a card to use a single service while you’re there. You might only need a card to take things out or use online services.
Anything I can rent at the library for free, I can pirate for free as well
Really? How exactly do you plan on pirating a ukulele or a crochet needle?
Wait, your library rents out more than books and DVDs? Our local library once had Kill a Watt devices on loan, but you could never get one and I believe they no longer do that.
I’d make use of renting other items if it were an option!
I don’t really want either of those things. Maybe if the library has something I wanted it would be different
This is what you said:
What you meant was:
Libraries do not exist for your personal benefit, and I doubt you have taken the time to check out what is available at your local library to actually know that for sure.
You’re right, I misspoke. Simply responding to the assertion that it’s dumb not to have a library card if you like free stuff. Not everyone wants what the library is offering.
But see, I don’t even agree there. Because it’s not even really everything you want unless you have extremely bland, mainstream tastes. It’s everything you want that you can find available for download. Not every book, album, TV show and movie has been digitized and uploaded. There is most likely a book you’d be interested in reading or a movie you’d be interested in watching or music you’d be interested in hearing that is not available for download. Or if it is, no one has put it on a pirate site. Has that not happened to you? Because I pirate too and that happens to me enough that I know I can’t pirate everything I want.
This coincidentally happened to me a few days ago. My daughter wanted to read a graphic novel. I couldn’t find it pirated anywhere. The library had it. Now she’s reading it.
Nah. If something is niche enough that it’s hard to find on the internet, there’s no chance my local library will have it.
Have you actually checked to find out if that is true? It isn’t true in this town. It’s a central Indiana town. We don’t have a lot of people interested in obscure graphic novels here.
And do you know that if one library doesn’t have something, they can get it for you from another library?
Why would I go to the library if I never find myself in the situation of being unable to find the thing I want without going to the library?
Plus with the library you are only renting the thing. And that’s a pain in the ass because you have to keep bringing stuff back.