Brenda, this is a great question
and this is the best category/forum for it, IMO. A couple of fascinating things come up with the question that is posed to Straight Dope here.
This person "googled the hell out of this [topic]" and consulted the "best resources" with Wikipedia being the foremost, but didn't discover much of anything about public libraries, Carnegie, or library funding in the US. This tells me that our "googling" minions are
not fulfilling their information needs --not even "good enough." It also tells me that our public libraries have still not convinced the general public that they are a key source of information. Imagine how quickly this patron would have gotten answers if he had called the local library.
For the larger issue about public libraries, I remember a great discussion in one of my LIS classes about how relatively recent the notion actually is --that is, the notion of a government-funded, open-stack resource for free and equal access to information that is the underpinning of an informed democratic citizenry. Even us 'old-timers' tend to take that for granted, but it's certainly not invulnerable or universal. Many libraries around the world have closed stacks and no-lending policies. Before our national public system, many libraries were private and proprietary. There are some predictions of a return to the private library as the predominate thing: when more and more resources are available digitally and data storage is cheap, individuals will build their own customized libraries.
Lots of food for thought here ...and discussion. I highly recommend reading the OCLC report on [url http://www.oclc.org/reports/2005perceptions.htm ]Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005)[/url] and let's keep the conversation going!
