Public Libraries or Internet Portals?

Here's another local article speaking to our Public Libraries' identity crises.

We get a little concerned with publicly funded entities thinking they have somehow received a mandate to be the information gatekeepers - most especially when they are part of the ALA.

The American Library Association are the ones that want your kids to be able to go to the library and log-on to any site that they wish - forget the morality or safety concerns. They also do not want anyone, ever, to have any oversight over what occurs with their portals. This is not to imply that your own local library is unsafe for your kids - quite the contrary. However, the ALA is the activist wing and political action entity which your library supports, and thus, so do your tax and donation dollars.

The ALS (Alliance Library System) is the more localized wing. Take a look at just a couple of items:

http://www.alliancelibrarysystem.com/article.cfm?id=989

http://www.alliancelibrarysystem.com/article.cfm?id=982

These are your tax dollars at work.

Now, our libraries seem to want to establish their own proprietary "Google". They seem to feel that will keep public libraries viable.

With the number of private initiatives like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, not to mention NetFlix, the coming "TV on demand" thing, do we really need a library to compete in these areas by offering net access, DVDs, CDs, and video games?