Philanthropic giving makes up a vital part of US public library budgets. Aside from the local fundraising, corporate giants from Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates have given hundreds of millions of dollars to fund library buildings, materials, and services. Honestly, without the Carnegie and Gates Foundations, public libraries in the US would be very different, and not in good ways. That’s capitalist greed turning into a public benefit.

I’m not saying Canada or the UK should look to us as a model. I’m just saying, our libraries has they exist now have evolved as a reflection of our country’s ideals, its geographic makeup, our government structure, and yes, our economic system. It may seem strange from an outsider’s viewpoint, but it works for us.

When some of us express the fact that the PLR system may be terribly hard to implement here, and that we feel it more fair to leave the system as it is, we aren’t just blowing smoke. We know the issues involved, and having thought on them, feel it probably would not work with our “entire” system of government.

Exactly. Thanks, Anon76.

A public library is this: We, as a local community, put our money together and buy some books and share them. That’s all.

Exactly. And this is what our libraries need to remain. A place giving the most people the most access to reading. Your posts have continued to show every reason why I do not think PLR would be a good thing for libraries and authors in the US.

When some of us express the fact that the PLR system may be terribly hard to implement here, and that we feel it more fair to leave the system as it is, we aren’t just blowing smoke. We know the issues involved, and having thought on them, feel it probably would not work with our “entire” system of government.

Perfectly put Anon76.

What Emmy said!

First you have the Federal Government with certain rules, then that trickles down to the State level (because we are still allowed to adapt certain things within our own states as long as we don’t want federal funding for said actions), then comes our county governments, and then our city or township governments.

And let me tell you, that is all a huge complicated dance. Right now I’m working on setting up a building and business for hubby and I. To do so, I have to appease every one of those trickle elements. Sometimes you have to start from the top and work down, and other times you have to start from the bottom and work up.

When some of us express the fact that the PLR system may be terribly hard to implement here, and that we feel it more fair to leave the system as it is, we aren’t just blowing smoke. We know the issues involved, and having thought on them, feel it probably would not work with our “entire” system of government.