Thank you for supporting me, Carol. I feel like a cassandra, here, talking about a future no one but me can see.
I've done the bit with transporting toddlers and a shopping bag full of books across busy streets, with and without bad weather. I've taken frail senior citizens to the library. I've taken cars full of Cub Scouts to the library and accompanied class trips. I'm a heavy user when I go--10-12 books is about my limit to carry, also my average library charge. When I did the thing with my older, frail friend, we added her 10+ talking books to my load and I used a two wheel cart, plus navigated for her, plus, plus, plus. If we can't get people into the building, all people, by whatever means they find usable, are we not missing the point of building the place? If restricting access is OK with people, let's just rent or buy some of the near north or even suburban empty warehouses, house the books in remote locations, spend the money on intra-library transportation service and teach people not to come in, or to use computer access from their neighborhood branches or even insist they browse from home with a computer if they have it. It's quite different on the U of M campus where MOST people are pretty much able to move where they want and don't have to fight traffic to do it. Even there, we end up with Point-to-point service, a paging service for people who can't or don't want to get to a particular remote location. Paging from a remote location for second day delivery is not an option in the current public library set up, so we are going to have to make location and design do the job of getting people into the building. Emilie Quast SE Como _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
