State of the Library

Ulman gave quite a shout out to the library system in his State of the County address. I agree with all of it- the Howard County Libraries are a great resource. Like many others, I have an M Power library card that lets me check out stuff from any library in the state. I have visited a few libraries in other counties, and each one strikes me as inferior to any of those in Howard County. According to Ulman, 95% of County residents have a library card. From the address:

Our libraries, for example are so successful and popular with our citizens that they face a unique and expensive challenge—the need for additional space and more parking.

Ulman is right, this is a unique challenge, but we cannot overcome it by expanding space and parking as he implies. One of the inherent problems of the library system is that everything is free. Not only do the libraries have free parking, but the services they provide are free as well. Creating more capacity will only increase demand by making the services more convenient. Thus, it is not possible to cure library overuse without charging for services. If you are giving away pizza, of course there won’t be enough pizza.

If anything should be tweaked, it should be the online databases and electronic media that can be accessed from home. There is plenty of room for improvement in those areas.