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Originally Posted by Tinordi
A shared space of learning, community building, and engagement open to all people?? What a waste!
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Let's start by saying that libraries are a great resource. Having access to information and literature is a path to better and more productive society.
But lets play devil's advocate here. Exactly how many of these structures does the city need? There are 18 public libraries in Calgary. According to statistics 393,000 Calgarians hold library cards. The average library in Canada will see just under
98,000 visitors a year. So you have dedicated 18 buildings, with 2,195,000 items in the collection, to service a select group of patrons from the community.
For comparison sake, in the same period the Saddledome attracted just over 1,118,000 fans for Flames and Hitmen games. I can't speak for other events, as those numbers weren't posted, but that's an awful lot of bodies that go through one building.
So do you spend $250M on another library which sees limited use, of which there are 17 others, or throw that into a building badly in need of replacement, one which sees many more visitors and generates more revenues for the City?
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Wouldn't it be better to use that money as a monument to the rich patricians where we could charge $200 per visit to satisfy their tribal blood lust?
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I don't know, wouldn't it be more worthwhile to build another library where a select few people can loiter or borrow DVDs and CDs to take home and pirate for free?
I think we can all agree there has to be middle ground in this discussion, and rushing to extremes or labeling patrons who likely frequent both facilities is not helping.