[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Beatle17

Good numbers, thanks. Last comment isn't needed as that is your opinion. Education & literacy are the job of the school system, so add that cost into the library if you want to compare total costs.

I don't really get what you're saying here. Of course it's my opinion, as it is my opinion that saying education and literacy is the job of the school system is really, really narrow. What about anybody over the age of 18 not in a post-secondary? Should they have no opportunity to continue to learn? How about programs at the library that may help some of the poorest, most vulnerable youth? It's a fine edge, but take every library out of the city and there would be a lot of kids with nothing better to do, and more likely to succumb to negative influences.

I'd love to hear an argument of why entertainment > education and literacy. If you want to talk about economic benefit that's fine, but investing in education beyond K-12 can help people become more employable. The library can play a big role in social mobility. You see great diversity at any library in town.

There are also no barriers to accessing the library (if cards aren't free yet, I believe they will be soon). Just because you don't use the library doesn't mean you can't. The vast majority of the population can't access the local sports arena/stadium.

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Thanks for these numbers.

As for the discussion though, they are very vague, and also have a low threshold: what constitutes a household's usage? Someone visited the library? (that would be my guess)

So to apply a similar test would be to say: what percentage of Calgary households had a member visit the Saddledome last year? (and I would imagine that percentage is fairly high as well)

And that doesn't account for visitors to the city who attend the Saddledome - they are imporatant too, as they bring in tourist dollars, visit restaurants, hotels, etc.

Of course the numbers are vague, but they are far more substantial than any data we have on our arena/stadium usage (I'd love to see it if it's out there). I'd be surprised if more than 33% of households had a member visit the Saddledome more than once in the last five years.

I think comparing expenditure on the new library (or bike lanes for that matter) to the arena project is ridiculous, but others seem to be arguing that the arena would be a more appropriate use of public funds. I don't think it should be an either/or scenario (and it isn't), but if it was I'd choose a library every single time.