An economics professor reportedly wrote a column for Forbes July 21 recommending that Amazon replace local free public libraries, thereby saving taxpayers money. The recommendation apparently was not popular. Christopher Ingraham in The Washington Post reports that as of July 23, the piece had been removed from the Forbes site. (As I write this, what purports to be a cached version of at least a portion of the article can be found through search.)
Writes Ingraham, “In the piece, Panos Mourdoukoutas of Long Island University argues that recent changes in the worlds of technology and commerce have rendered libraries mostly obsolete.” For example, coffee shops have replaced libraries as community gathering spaces, streaming services have eliminated the need for patrons to borrow movies from libraries, and e-books have “turned physical books into collector’s items, effectively eliminating the need for library borrowing services,” as Mourdoukoutas is reported to have written.
Continues Ingraham, “Mourdoukoutas’s piece is notable less for the arguments it contains than for sparking a backlash that was loud and fierce, two traits not typically associated with libraries or their patrons. Much of it is unsuitable for publication in a family newspaper.”
One person who responded is writer and librarian Amanda Oliver. “As someone who has worked in libraries for seven years, the suggestion that Amazon could be a better provider than a library is unfathomable,” she writes at Vox. “Amazon charges people who want access to art and entertainment. By offering anybody free access to a massive collection of books, music, and movies, libraries fundamentally advance the idea that culture is a public good that everybody has a right to enjoy, regardless of their income. For anyone who believes in the power of art to change and enhance our lives, the idea that it should only be available to people who can pay for it is horrifying.”
The library where Oliver works offers services beyond lending “obsolete” movies and books-on-paper—helping the homeless find food and shelter and the unemployed write resumes and find work, for example. And for those who say there are separate agencies for that, Oliver responds, “But where are people without access to computers or Internet supposed to go to find the agencies that will help them job-search or secure low-income housing? Where can they go to sit down and figure out their next steps, with knowledgeable help close by?”
Ingraham at the Post (whose owner Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, would presumably be the driving force behind Amazon’s library replacement) cites data from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) indicating that libraries remain popular. “As it turns out, lots and lots of people use their local libraries,” he writes. “In 2016, the most recent year for which data is available, ‘more than 171 million registered users, representing over half of the nearly 311 million Americans who lived within a public library service area, visited public libraries over 1.35 billion times,’ the IMLS reports.”
Ingraham also notes that more than 11,000 libraries in the United States offer books for Amazon’s Kindle. “Libraries have coexisted peacefully with brick-and-mortar bookstores, big and small, for decades,” concludes Ingraham. “There’s no obvious reason a physical Amazon bookstore would change that relationship.”
The original Forbes column reportedly suggested that Amazon’s taking over of libraries would save taxpayers money while enhancing Amazon stockholder value. To which Oliver at Vox replies, “I refuse to accept that everything must be ‘disrupted’ and turned into a moneymaking machine for tech elites. It’s absurd to suggest that Silicon Valley look to profit from one of the few institutions available across the entire country that doesn’t exist to make money for someone else.”
She concludes, “Libraries are irreplaceable. Either discuss providing more funding for the invaluable work we do, or leave them alone.”
Update: Quartz has a quote from a Forbes spokesperson: “Forbes advocates spirited dialogue on a range of topics, including those that often take a contrarian view. Libraries play an important role in our society. This article was outside of this contributor’s specific area of expertise, and has since been removed.”
In addition, American Library Association president Loida Garcia-Febo comments in Publishers Weekly, “The evidence is clear: our nation’s libraries are a sound public investment.” She cites some specific figures: “In Ohio, for example, taxpayers enjoy an economic return of $5.48 per dollar of taxpayer support. Texas public libraries were found to provide $2.628 billion in benefits while costing $566 million, a return on investment of $4.64 for each dollar. The list of examples of economic value goes on and on.”
