I’ve often been critical of David Frum in the past (and rightfully so) but his latest column is absolutely brilliant! He places himself in the role of media consultant for the beleaguered Toronto Municipal Employees and then proceeds to mock them incessantly. It’s beautiful! Here’s a snippet:
Some radicals might even suggest that public money be spent to support the creation of a universal downloadable digital library — by, for example, buying copyrights of out-of-print books and making them available to all for free over the Internet on any computer, tablet, or smart phone.
But those 21st-century approaches do not sustain unionized public-sector jobs! And sustaining unionized public-sector jobs must be priority number one, ahead of all other considerations. If we delivered a service a certain way in 1961, that’s the way it must be delivered in 2011 — only, of course, by a larger workforce, earning higher pay, with superior benefits.
I might not be stating something here that everyone doesn’t already know, the the universal free downloadable library already exists. My Favourite is the Gutenberg project which is in the process of scanning and making available out of copywright books in a variaty of formats. I have a Kobo and I am finally getting around to reading all those books that I have wanted, or thought I should read for years. They are all at my fingertips and they are all free. Some of them are even really good books. The Gutenberg project does, however take donations to aid them in their good work.
I realize it is a stupid question, but how could 69 people in Toronto’s public library system make 6 figures?
It depends on how much they steal. Two members of my family (one retired) work for the Toronto public library. One was caught, with 200+ library cards that they used to get material, and the write it off. Caught, with several hundred DVD’s, CD’s and almost a thousand periodicals. Because the “write-down” cost was under 10,000$, the union would not let her be procecuted.
She still works there.
Not sure I would call the Frum article brilliant. But it certainly is clever in the way it dresses down the unions. Really wish more of Frum’s work would be like this article.
This should be under the title “Great moments in Journalism” or “Not waiting for the Asteriod”…Runnymede Library (in the picture) is still open. No doubt Frum’s musings are just as accurate.
Occasionally David comes back to his senses.
He is one of the chorus singing out against the overfed public sector. He is right to do so.
‘I realize it is a stupid question, but how could 69 people in Toronto’s public library system make 6 figures?’
“there is no such thing as a stupid question, but generally they are the easiest to answer.”
bureaucratic greed (something you will rarely hear about, as against the frequently lambasted corporate greed)
“minuteman” mentions the Gutenberg project (there are others).
It now contains nearly all of the classical literature in English. The last time I looked it had two editions of Milton’s Paradise Lost. This will cause any academic’s eyes to light up – “compare and contrast the language used by Satan in the first and second editions” etc.; with that resource the questions just write themselves. It is just not possible to set questions of that
sort where the resource is a library, because the library will not have enough copies for everyone in the class.
The astronomical/astrophysical community now does nearly everything on line, from dissemination of raw data to publishing and archiving. The mathematical community is moving in the same direction. Research libraries have moved to keep up with this trend. They now provide online access to licensed materials (journals, indexing services, databases, etc.). I have had much to do with our university library, and have sat through many meetings of our professional librarians where the word “book” was not uttered (the pressing issues are of internet access and copyright, copyright, and did I say copyright? A research library these days is among other things a business agent to negotiate access with journal publishers and aggregators).
Students these days do not often consult the books in our library; there is a “Digital Commons” which is well used. I myself suggest to students that they should begin literature searches with Wikipedia (which is magnificent, despite its flaws) and then Google Scholar.
Gradually the large libraries are becoming repositories for books primarily in large format: very expensive art books and biological works, etc. There is point in the Toronto public library system having a copy of the catalogue raisonne’ of David Milne’s works, for instance, but a couple in the Toronto area will suffice, and at $350 a pop, or Klee’s
at about 290 euro a volume for five volumes, it would be difficult to persuade anyone to purchase many copies.
The defence of the Toronto public library system as it was is not well advised. Margaret Atwood is not being sensible. I see no reason for more than
about five branch libraries, and these should direct their efforts to internet access for their patrons, and for the acquisition of a limited number of rare and expensive books.
WORKING for the government, is an oxymorn
Privatize