"A resident of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, has lost an appeal to the state Supreme Court of his claim that Michigan public libraries must sell nonresidents library cards on request."Click on blog title to view entire story.
I don't know how I feel about this. For some reason, I think selling cards could produce more profits for a library, especially a great one that everyone wants a piece of (like the one I work at now). However, I wonder why a library would so adminently refuse a card to non-residents. Do non-residents misuse the privilage? Are there not enough non-residents doing it to make it profitable (or just worthwhile)? Are the non-residents impeding on the tax-paying residents' services? I don't know.
Thoughts?
2 comments:
Larry Neal (director of the Clinton-Macomb Public Library) wrote an illuminating letter on this that was published in The Macomb Daily on June 7 of this year. Read it here. Larry is very cool.
It's probably the first time anything of sense has ever appeared in that particular newspaper.
A coworker discussed with me two reasons why a library might not want to sell cards to nearby non-residents:
1. If libraries in surrounding communities continue to offer non-residents these services, then the communities WITHOUT services can continue to use other peoples' libraries and never make a change to their own (i.e. implement a millage). It offers communities an excuse to not beef up their own library system.
2. If non-residents ARE willing to pay a price for a card, chances are they will use the library at a higher level then the resident patron.
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