Last year, Morgan Hill made a proposal to have a new local
library included in the State of California Library Bond funding.
The proposal, though good, did not make the cut and the City of
Morgan Hill is working on an improved proposal for the second round
of funding allocations.
Last year, Morgan Hill made a proposal to have a new local library included in the State of California Library Bond funding. The proposal, though good, did not make the cut and the City of Morgan Hill is working on an improved proposal for the second round of funding allocations.
This was disappointing to the community. It was, however, only the first of manychallenges to the library system that we know and use. Not since the days when Andrew Carnegie was funding the development of a public library system has it been more important to have public attention turned to the preservation of that which Carnegie started. The Centennial Celebration for the Carnegie Library in Carnegie, Penn., was held in 2002. That makes is fitting that we now consider what is happening to our library system.
One of Gov. Gray Davis’s responses to the current budget crisis is to move the funding of Public Libraries to a “pay-as-you-borrow” system. Libraries would be allowed to charge amounts up to $5 every time someone borrows a book. This in counter to the entire tradition of public libraries in the United States. The generosity of Andrew Carnegie was through the Andrew Carnegie Free Library Association.
Carnegie viewed libraries as a social tool to educate the large number of people who could not afford to buy books for themselves. A review of the life of Andrew Carnegie reveals that he was working long hours and unable to attend schooling beyond the age of 11. He did, however, educate himself through the books that were lent to young boys by a one Colonel Anderson. For Carnegie, libraries were the means though which those with the right inclination and enough gumption could educate themselves.
The library is also a tool for social integration in a pluralistic society. According to Carnegie, “In a public library men could at least share cultural opportunities on a basis of equality.” (New York Times, Jan. 8, 1903, pp. 1) Actions such as those proposed by Gov. Davis removes from the library both of these roles and turns in into just another instrument for the distribution of intellectual property. This is a transformation that we can not allow to take place.
The prevailing conservative philosophy of cutting taxes at every opportunity is causing governments, especially local governments, to begin funding everything on a fee for services basis. While this may be appropriate for some things, for services such as public safety, public education and public libraries this is an unacceptable action.
The second and more insidious systematic attack on the public library system is coming through the reform of copyright laws in the United States. The new laws, passed under the guise of reform, are commodifying intellectual property and allowing it to be accumulated in the hands of a very few, very large corporations. According to an FTC Complaint, “Five major distributors sell and distribute over 85 percent of all prerecorded music in the United States.”
Under current provisions, the duration of a copyright is for the life of the author plus 70 years. The Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to make laws “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; “It was never intended that this should give Disney, News Corp and other large media distributors the ability to hold on to their “rights” for extended periods of time. These extensions do not “promote the progress of science and useful arts” but only enrich the few.
The current discussion of intellectual property rights focuses on the use of the Internet to circumvent copyright protection. The courts have shut down distribution sites such as Napster. However, the media corporations with their desire to extract every possible dollar out of any piece of media have only made the situation worse.
The ultimate goal of the media giants is to move all new intellectual property into digital distribution where you are never able to purchase a book, musical performance or movie. You will only be able to license the material to be read, listened to or watched.
What, you may ask, does that have to do with libraries? The media organizations view libraries as their enemy. Once a library “owns” a particular work, it is no longer under the control or scrutiny of a corporation. If the library is only allowed to “license” the work, then every transaction will be recorded and carry a fee. In fact, you might pay a fee to read a poem, and then have to pay the fee again to read it again.
At this point, the entire concept of public libraries as a social tool will be challenged. If we have to pay for every transaction, what is the difference between going to a library and going to a store? It seems to me that there would be very little and our intellectual future would now be in the hands of those same few media distributors.
I would encourage all of those who can afford it to follow Andrew Carnegie, at least in helping to fund out local public library. Carnegie funded the construction of over 2,500 libraries. We can possibly help out case with the State of California if we start a local Library Construction Fund to be matched from the state Library Bond funding.
We also can support the libraries to ensure that they are not placed on a fee for service basis. Please contact Assemblyman John Laird to make sure that he does not just go along with the Democratic governor’s position on this important issue. Finally we need to educate ourselves on the issues of intellectual property laws and the accumulation of media ownership. You can start this education with a visit to your local, still free, public library.
“I find I have a great lot to learn – or unlearn. I seem to know far too much and this knowledge obscures the really significant facts, but I am getting on.” – Charles Rennie Mackintosh
