All on account of economy

I suppose this shouldn’t come as a surprise, what with governments cutting back every way they can (except for salaries and benefits of elected officials) these days. But on the 19^th I received an email from Santa Clara County Library informing me that, starting 1 July, I’m going to have to pay $80 a year for the privilege of checking out books from their system.

This is because I don’t live in unincorporated county areas or nine specific cities (the ones that have county library branches). I’m still “welcome to visit our libraries, attend programs, and use resources inside the library.  However, a card is required to check out materials, use the full service computers, and have remote access to online databases.”

(In a related story, the San Jose city library system announced that their branches are only going to be open four days a week. This is also a cost-saving measure.)

I understand the necessity, although I think there’s something really, really wrong about an economic system in which global businesses (lured to states and cities with all sorts of financial incentives) rake in billions and billions annually without paying corporate taxes while working stiffs have to pay $80 per year for access to information that’s been part of the social contract for a long time. An informed electorate is the sine qua non of any democracy, and information institutions are moving beyond the reach of the common folk. 


Yeah, yeah, yeah--you can get all the data you want over the Internet. But what if your only Web access was via the local library?

Anyway, what gets me is that SCCL sent out the notification less than two weeks before I have to fork over the money. They couldn’t have eased us into this?