Goshen, New York: Years of Planning and Still No New Library

Goshen (New York) Public Library and Historical Society

Goshen library considers move to 1887 building. (The Chronicle, 7/7/2011)

Excerpt: The current building must limit the number of people allowed downstairs, where children’s classes and workshops are held. Children in wheelchairs cannot participate in library programs because the downstairs area is not accessible. Wheelchairs also can’t fit between the narrow aisles of books upstairs. Every year the library has to apply for a variance to stay open because it doesn’t comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires wheelchair accessibility.

Years of planning and still no library.

The 1887 building lease is only the latest idea in ten years of planning for an expanded library. The library had secured a $600,000 loan to buy property in the Salesian park, where the former board had hoped to put up a new building for $19 million. But a 2008 referendum overwhelmingly rejected the plan, and the library is still paying off the loan.

Land o' Goshen.

Ebooks, Netflix, and Library Building Projects (Part 75, St. Louis Public Library)

LINK

Do Your Local Officials Subscribe to These Beliefs?

1   Ebooks now outsell print books.  (Round 2 of "Why do we need libraries?")
2.  Public library access computers are used primarily by the homeless and other "undesirables".

Best to find out NOW --  before your municipality and county begin their 2012 budget development in earnest.

Library's hand is out for dying industry. (Indianapolis Star letter to editor, 7/8/2011)

Excerpt: Since Amazon announced last year that eBooks have begun to outsell hardcover books, even large retailers like Borders have begun to shift their focus to the online business. Why should taxpayers subsidize a dying industry?

Thanks to sloppy reporting and even sloppier reading, this Amazon announcement has been widely misinterpreted.

In response to another argument, instead of being the center of education or culture, today the library is often nothing more than a publicly funded hangout and computer lab for the homeless. Again and again we as taxpayers are asked to shell out a few extra dollars, in response to a Chicken Little-style rhetoric to stave off the end of culture and Western civilization as we know it.

LINK to 8-page report (Timely myth-busting.)

Be sure they have the correct information.