Head Tale

Posting this as a Friday Fun Link sorta feels like being the party guest who comes over and starts criticizing your housekeeping or your parenting skills or whatever.  But anyhow, here I am in Edmonton, enjoying the CLA conference and I can't help but re-post my essay, “Cash Cow: User Fees in Alberta Public Libraries“. 

I didn't mention it except for one brief exchange with a colleague from Calgary but for me, it was the elephant in the room for the pre-conference on social responsibility.  We had twenty or so people there, at least fifteen were from Alberta yet nobody seemed to notice or bring up that the fact that Alberta charges a fee to everybody who wants a library card (and yes I know they'll waive the fee for those who can't pay it but I address all the related issues around that in the essay.  Go read it!)

(That reminds me – I gotta go reply to Punch Jackson on Twitter.  Oops, can't find his reply to my tweet right but I think he asked “how do you make up the $4 million shortfall for not charging user fees?”  Well, call me a communist but how about since Alberta's population is 3.3 million, how about adding a buck and a quarter to the annual taxes of everybody in Alberta?  Or what about tapping into a very small fraction of the the surpluses they had when I wrote the essay and the government projects to be coming back?  Or maybe have the libraries raise their levies a small amount?  It's not a hard question – it's a question of having the balls will to do it.)