My local one is rather great for what it offers kids and teens as a place to hang out and play video games or do other random tasks to keep themselves occupied. Its usually quite full with the poor kids in town who'd never be able to afford a video game. No drag queens yet, so that hasn't been exploited.
I think the original purpose as a book center has long since lost its use, but the libraries themselves have adapted to make up for it overall and people who don't use them (like rich self-centered liberals) never noticed.
When I volunteered with my local big brother type program my buddy always wanted to hang there and do exactly that with a bunch of other 12 year olds. A lot of the time it was even the exact same flash games I had played a decade+ prior.
The only notable difference Minecraft mixed in and videos about GTA Online on youtube.
No manga for the poor kids? Other than that I agree that library has changed to be more of a meeting space rather than completely be about lending of books.
The problem with manga from a library is that its a complete trap.
They'll have a portion of a series, which gets you addicted to it, and then you want to spend money on the rest which you cannot afford and should absolutely spend on something with more lasting usage (reading a volume might get you an hour or so every few months). For the clever ones who learned where to read it online they are fine, but then they don't need the physical editions to begin with.
Not to mention, most manga worth reading is pretty inappropriate for kids. The things that aren't are either way too niche for a small town library or part of a super massive series like Naruto which compounds the prior issue.
My local one is rather great for what it offers kids and teens as a place to hang out and play video games or do other random tasks to keep themselves occupied. Its usually quite full with the poor kids in town who'd never be able to afford a video game. No drag queens yet, so that hasn't been exploited.
I think the original purpose as a book center has long since lost its use, but the libraries themselves have adapted to make up for it overall and people who don't use them (like rich self-centered liberals) never noticed.
My local one is always full of tweens playing
flashHTML5 games on the computers. Some things never change.When I volunteered with my local big brother type program my buddy always wanted to hang there and do exactly that with a bunch of other 12 year olds. A lot of the time it was even the exact same flash games I had played a decade+ prior.
The only notable difference Minecraft mixed in and videos about GTA Online on youtube.
No manga for the poor kids? Other than that I agree that library has changed to be more of a meeting space rather than completely be about lending of books.
The problem with manga from a library is that its a complete trap.
They'll have a portion of a series, which gets you addicted to it, and then you want to spend money on the rest which you cannot afford and should absolutely spend on something with more lasting usage (reading a volume might get you an hour or so every few months). For the clever ones who learned where to read it online they are fine, but then they don't need the physical editions to begin with.
Not to mention, most manga worth reading is pretty inappropriate for kids. The things that aren't are either way too niche for a small town library or part of a super massive series like Naruto which compounds the prior issue.