Yes. Libraries will always be here, no matter who our figurehead is.
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The top of the ticket is never the issue for libraries, especially K-12 and public libraries. The man’s a fatuous gasbag, but his voters are the ones who decide what happens to your school and public libraries. Worry more about the fact that Americans for Prosperity came out against a library ballot initiative last year. Worry more about state legislatures cutting state funding in the name of “balancing our budget” while individual communities are left to pick up the bill, leading to dire discrepancies between the haves and have-nots. It isn’t up to Trump to keep libraries as the level playing field where American education and democracy thrive, it’s up to all of us.
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Pity that the magazine stopped publishing, though.
Um. It did? You can certainly subscribe to it, and receive a magazine called National Geographic in the mail.
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@pesco I realize that the author of the piece wrote the lede, but if there’s any polite way to share with them how much seeing the “author assumes your idea of something is stuck in the 1950s” intro makes every librarian reading it want to beat their head against a wall, kindly oblige. Imagine a reporter covering Black Lives Matter starting a piece with “You might think that people should drink out of different fountains, but wait 'til you hear about this!” Literally nobody who has been in a public library in the last 20 years thinks of them that way.
This is, of course, nothing to do with your futurism, which is awesome and well-connected to the things that libraries are currently doing. I long for a day where I can stream some Dog’s Eye View while having the actual dogs-eye view. It’s just a huge pet-peeve of mine because this kind of coverage from media sources is the reason why I got invited to give a “Libraries in the 21st Century” talk to a community group last year. Brief synopsis: “We’re here, we’ve been here for a while, and hold on to your butts, because we’re bringing the rest of you along for the ride.”
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Well, yes, NG has new ownership, and I’m not at all happy with Rupert Murdoch being in charge. But having just read an issue, they aren’t exactly spewing Fox rhetoric yet, and the magazine is still publishing.
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Oh, certainly. But, sarcasm aside, as far as I’m concerned, National Geographic is dead, and has been dead since they were purchased by Rupert Murdoch, as he promptly began gutting the place of any dissent from his viewpoint.
So, at this point, while you certain can receive a glossy magazine in the mail that says “National Geographic” on the cover, it is no more Nat Geo than a shuffling zombie with a familiar face is actually still a dear and close friend of yours.
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Point taken. I was mostly just making a sarcastic quip. But it’s not Trump qua Trump that concerns me; it’s the legitimacy his election, or even a narrow loss, would give his base, who are not the kind of people who value libraries.
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I love my local library. It’s only small, but it’s fantastic. Lots of talks and activities. Books you can reserve for free. Books and Babies time every week.
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