[jimbokun]

Today, libraries are more amazing and more necessary than ever.

With online services constantly changing what is or isn't available, having a library with physical media, books, and even their own services for borrowing audio books and other online media, can be a real asset when trying to watch a specific movie or TV show or listen to a particular song the streamers decided to stop offering, or moved to a different service you're not subscribed to, etc.

[HeinzStuckeIt]

For getting media made inaccessible, you could just do what all those many countries around the world without good public libraries do: pirate it. Talk to anyone serious about cinema as an art form in Eastern Europe or the developing world, and Bittorrent was their school, not a library or a paid streaming platform.

In any event, I agree that public libraries are good, but it is easy to see that momentum in the USA for sustaining them has slowed: on American-dominated forums people often view public libraries nowadays as a place for the smelly homeless to hang out, look at porn, and possibly shoot up.

[nathan_compton]

> on American-dominated forums people often view public libraries nowadays as a place for the smelly homeless to hang out, look at porn, and possibly shoot up.

Don't get where you are coming from. I'm american and everywhere I've ever gone into a library its been great. Everyone I know with kids (including myself) visits the library all the time, often daily, at least weekly.

[pxc]

The university I went to did start restricting hours (requiring student IDs for more of them than it used to) during my time there, apparently to try to divert some homeless people away at night.

But I've never actually been to a library that didn't feel safe, clean, and comfortable when I was there, including that one. I certainly never saw any signs of drug use, or anyone browsing pornography.

[pxc]

I also want to add that being homeless isn't the same thing as being disorderly, frightening, unfriendly, or smelly.

Over the years, I've had friends who were homeless (depending on the person, before or during the times that I've known them). Sometimes they have a lot of difficulty getting bank accounts, jobs, or apartments in part because of documentation issues or bureaucratic tasks that they need internet access to solve. Libraries are a lifeline that helps homeless people rebuild stable lives.

Libraries should be sanctuaries and feel safe for everyone, including the most precarious people in society.

[mikkupikku]

You should stop believing that you can learn what America is like by reading about it online or in the media. Homeless scum making libraries unusable is extremely rare in America, if in fact it ever happens at all. I regularly visit libraries everywhere I go and only a few times did I ever see anything even like that and it was limited to one or two street people wandering around in the lobby or hidden off in some corner. Even in Seattle where the number of street junkies sprawled out on sidewalks was far too high for my standards of decency, the public library downtown was absolutely pristine. You might sometimes see a bum in the ground floor going for the toilets, but that's it. They otherwise avoid the library, it has nothing for them. Porn? They have phones I guess, I've never once seen a computer room overflowing with street coomers. I'm not saying it never happened somewhere at some time, but it's not a regular thing.

Also, I don't just visit big flagship libraries in big cities. Libraries in metro suburb areas and also libraries in small rural working class towns are places I've been to many times without seeming anything like what you've described. All across America, libraries are clean and designed to be safe and inviting places for families of all ages.

Of course what I've written is just a other online account which you shouldn't blindly believe. You shouldn't have beliefs one way or the other about American libraries unless you've actually visited American libraries yourself. If you aren't even American, then the status of American libraries shouldn't be something you pretend to be informed about. It shouldn't even be something you pretend to have an opinion about. It's like my opinion on Luxemburg supermarkets; I have none! I've never been in one and they're far from my life so I can't just walk into one. I have no opinion on them, have no reason to pretend to have an opinion, have no reason to believe I can form meaningful opinions about them by reading about them online. Somehow people can't manage this when it comes to America.

[i80and]

> on American-dominated forums people often view public libraries nowadays as a place for the smelly homeless to hang out, look at porn, and possibly shoot up.

I think this says far more about your specific forum bubbles than anything else, to be honest.

At worst I see a perception that libraries are for children.

[HeinzStuckeIt]

If you do a DDG search site:news.ycombinator.com "libraries" "homeless", you find some such discussions from this very site. But as I said, you can also find this across the internet when forums are dominated by Americans and it’s certainly not limited to obscure and dodgy venues.

I suppose it is the big-city Americans who are complaining about the social problems. But it’s also common to see from small-town Americans that opening hours at their local library have been slashed, which also speaks to declining support for them.