>Librarians, Budget Cuts, Assumptions

>As a response to a rash of budget slashing to public libraries, Wil Wheaton posted about how he thinks librarians are awesome. It’s hard to argue with that premise; libraries and librarians are, indeed, awesome, and you’d be a fool to say otherwise. Who among us reader-types doesn’t have a heart-warming memory of libraries and librarians, like Mr. Wheaton? It’s part of why we became readers in the first place. Good for Mr. Wheaton for staking a controversial claim.

But then Mr. Wheaton spoils a perfectly lovely remembrance by ending it with this bit of straw man nastiness:

Libraries are constantly under attack from people who fear knowledge, politicians who think guns are more important than books, and people who want to ensure that multi-millionaires pocket even more money.

Ah, of course. The culprits to these budgets cuts are obvious. Knowledge fearing people, gun-clinging politicians, greedy millionaires. The usual suspects. It’s so obvious.

Only it’s not so obvious. Mr. Wheaton offers no proof of his assertion because I guess it just pretty much goes without saying: anyone who wants to cut library funding must be evil and conservative and not good and liberal like, say, Mr. Wheaton himself. There’s just nothing left to say. Which is fine; it’s Mr. Wheaton’s blog, after all, and he can say anything he wants bno matter how ridiculous and without proof. That’s the way blogs work.

His commenters are quick to agree on the subject of librarian awesomeness – and quite a few let Mr. Wheaton know how awesome he is for thinking librarians are awesome – and barely pay attention to his claims about the causes of library extinction. Maybe it’s a given for them, too. I clicked through to some of the links posted by the commenters to other articles that bemoan the demise of libraries and nowhere did I see anything about knowledge-fearing, gun-clinging, tax-dodging people and politicians being behind this flurry of budget cuts. In fact, in Mr. Wheaton’s own California, the culprit is the recently elected liberal Jerry Brown. And in Los Angeles, no one must be behind library budget cuts because the mayor and a good chunk of the city council have thrown their support behind Measure L, which, if passed, will give libraries a bigger guaranteed chunk of the city’s general fund. (An increase from .0175 to .03 share of the general fund may seem minuscule but that’s a 170% increase; you wouldn’t turn down a 170% increase in your salary, would you? Didn’t think so.) I guess that means the mayor and city council are powerless to stop these budget cuts without a vote of the people. If true, exactly what role do Los Angeles elected officials have to play in the spending process? What do they do, exactly?

I clicked on through to some of the related articles and learned this about library budget cuts. Hey, things are tough all over! Who knew?

I make a brief appearance in the comments pointing this out and Mr. Wheaton was kind enough to rejoin that the problems aren’t limited to Los Angeles and California, completely ignoring my point. I countered that likely what holds true for Los Angeles and California holds true for the other areas quoted in the linked articles, that budgetary crunches call for cuts across the board and politicians of all stripes are likely behind them. Mr. Wheaton leaves that alone, content, I suppose, to continue to believe the narrative that all bad things come from stupid people and all good things come from people like him.

I’m not advocating budget cuts for libraries. I, too, libraries – and librarians! – are awesome. Government should do what only government should do and maintaining a library system accessible to all seems like a role for government. (Though the Internet fills at least part of a library’s role quite nicely without government intervention.) (And could we do with a little less easy access to porn, libraries? Keep the experience more family-friendly? I mean, I know all about the 1st amendment and everything but come on. Show some judgement.) But budgets are tight, spending has to be cut, and it all finally comes down to whose ox is being gored. If you don’t cut library budgets, what do you cut? Police and fire protection? Sanitation? Road maintenance?

Government budget cuts mean tough choices. That’s what politicians are elected for; that’s the democratic process. Don’t like it? Vote someone else in who’ll do the job you want. But leave the straw men aside. That doesn’t help.

Wil Wheaton Thinks Games Are Important

Who am I to argue?

When you play a game – any game – you’re using your imagination to bring a world to life, and that’s truly special, because while all destruction is essentially the same, when you create something, it’s different every single time. When you create something together, you’re building bonds with your fellow gamers that could last for your entire lives. The Venn Diagram of my best friends, my gaming group, and people from high school I still hang out with is one perfect circle. I suspect that for many gamers of my generation, that’s equally true … and I know that my kids will be saying the same thing in 20 years about people they’ve never met face to face, but interact with almost every day in an online game that will make Call of Duty look then like Pong looks today.

An interesting take on the social aspects of gaming.

Twitter’s Impact on a Life

Sure, Twitter’s a waste of time, but it’s my time and I’ll waste it if I want. But Wil Wheaton doesn’t think Twitter’s a waste of time. (I’ve blogged here before about Wil Wheaton .)

I’ve always believed that when you work hard and are kind to people, wonderful things will happen, and some of those wonderful things will happen to you. (It was awesome to hear something similar from Conan O’Brien recently; that made me feel like I’ve been on the right track.) I’ve always hoped that the work would just speak for itself, but in all aspects of the entertainment industry, just being good at what you do or just being good to work with aren’t enough. Just being an entertaining author or filmmaker or performer isn’t enough; you need to get your work in front of an audience, especially if you hope to make a living from your art. There is a whole lot of reality at the root of the old cliché about who you know and networking. I didn’t expect it, and it’s not even my primary reason for using it, but Twitter has ended up filling that gap in my professional life, and the results have been nothing short of astounding.

While Wheaton’s emphasis is on the marketing advantages of Twitter – most of my followers seem to be marketers who are interested in letting me know of their awesome marketing skills – he does manage to touch on the personal benefits. Twitter is just a plain ol’ good way of keeping in touch with a lot of people. That seems to be more of why I’m on Twitter; I find it simply amusing and some of the people I’ve made connections with are quite wonderful. I wouldn’t call that a waste of time at all.