"Research is in my wheelhouse. But not, like, John Oliver level."

December 24, 2021 10:41 AM

'A For-Profit Company is Trying to Privatize As Many Public Libraries As They Can' (A CounterSpin interview with librarian Caleb Nichols about his TruthOut article about Library Systems & Services)
posted by box (13 comments total)

The good news is that, for a company that planned to take over public libraries more than twenty years ago, they’re not quite the disruptive force they imagined. They currently have snagged 19 community library systems. (They say “75 libraries” but count branches). There are 16,568 public library branches in the US (9,057 systems). They aren’t growing fast because they lose contracts as they gain new ones. I despise this company but it’s one of the least successful privatization schemes that I know of after two decades trying.
posted by zenzenobia at 11:39 AM on December 24, 2021 [57 favorites]

I'm a public librarian with an MLS. I see this particular company every once in a while when I'm window-gazing other jobs, which is how the author of the article says he found them. (Kind of weird that what caught his eye was the hourly pay rate, as I don't think I've ever seen more than a handful of non-management librarian jobs that aren't hourly.) Considering the amount of half-understood business speak that already makes it's way into public systems I can only imagine how miserable it would be to have actual corporate goons running the show. Ugh.
posted by sir_patrick_o'veal at 1:27 PM on December 24, 2021 [8 favorites]

A[nother] For-Profit Company Aims To Profit From The Investments of Taxpayer Money In Civic Infrastructure

FTFY

(“…. Because Way More MBAs Were Minted Than Any Equitable Society Would Ever Need”)
posted by armoir from antproof case at 1:31 PM on December 24, 2021 [29 favorites]

zenzenobia: I despise this company but it’s one of the least successful privatization schemes that I know of after two decades trying.

Ah, there's the Christmas cheer I needed. Thanks!
posted by clawsoon at 3:03 PM on December 24, 2021 [17 favorites]

A significant amount of wealthy US families got wealthy by finding a way to extract a disproportionate amount of money from the government while providing little or no value. The current generations of those families know few other ways to sustain their family's fortune. They go after public money like a bank robber goes after banks.
posted by krisjohn at 3:10 PM on December 24, 2021 [18 favorites]

Book publishers have long since wrung any spare nickels out of the public library systems. I don’t think there is much of an economy of scale to be gained by rolling up a bunch of library systems under one big company umbrella.
posted by interogative mood at 4:05 PM on December 24, 2021 [4 favorites]

Just what exactly is a for-profit library? Charging rental fees? Exorbitant late fees? Only stock books that have a high rental rate? Periodic fee to just have a library card? Only members with card allowed in? Internet access fees? Blockbuster wedded to Barnes and Noble? Who are the assumed customers for this venture?
posted by njohnson23 at 5:14 PM on December 24, 2021 [5 favorites]

Do Amazon brick-and-mortars still exist? That vibe seems similar to a for-profit library.
posted by badbobbycase at 5:56 PM on December 24, 2021

If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer. So probably the customer is the municipality that's having trouble balancing their budget, and believes the company won't milk the contract for every penny.
posted by rebent at 5:58 PM on December 24, 2021 [8 favorites]

They get money from the taxes people pay for their public libraries. Except they skim a bit (a lot) off the top for profit and under-investing in the library system by exploiting the workers (who are already generally pretty exploited by all the other public library systems that demand Masters degrees that cost $50,000+ but then offer only part-time, contract, or barely minimum wage jobs where the responsibilities include managing significant budgets and people. .
posted by saucysault at 6:00 PM on December 24, 2021 [17 favorites]

So it's the for-profit prison model, but for libraries?
posted by clawsoon at 7:59 PM on December 24, 2021 [6 favorites]

This company is obviously awful, but I can't help thinking that...perhaps a library run by LS&S isn't that different from a lot of public libraries under a more traditional organizational structure. As saucysault notes, public library systems that offer underpaid and no-benefits positions are very common just because libraries seem like a luxury - and a quaint luxury at that - to taxpayers and local governments.

In that way it IS like the for-profit prison model - trying to make a profit clearly introduces some perverse incentives, but prisons that aren't for profit are capable of being just as awful. They're both often trying to save as much money as possible regardless of the consequences.
posted by Jeanne at 4:24 AM on December 25, 2021

But a for profit company introduced into the process doesn't remove the perception that a library is a luxury. So the library gets squeezed twice; once by the budget setters and then again by the profit seekers.

I realize this is anti rah-rah the free market will solve all problems (which is obviously false IMO) but it really is hard to imagine a public service system where with the same budget the outcome is better when shareholders are taking a cut. Sticking a layer of profit taking in between the budget provider and the service provide is really only better for the people getting the profit. In the case of prisons it also introduces a layer of plausible deniability between abuses perpetuated by the system and politicians so I guess that is also a win for them. Not something that comes up all that often for libraries though.

It's probably pretty telling that the company hasn't been a success. Around here privatization is good for companies who can use it to break union contracts extracting profit from lower wages. However libraries are already at those lower levels; few library workers are making an appropriate wage that can be cut to divert money to shareholders. But it also pretty much universally results in poorer delivery of services if only because people getting a wage cut are less happy in their positions leading to churn, harder recruitment and negative outcomes. So much so that our government is ending contracts and moving things like food preparation in hospitals and care facilities back to direct government employment.
posted by Mitheral at 9:13 AM on December 25, 2021 [3 favorites]