“In 2003-04, the [Evanston] library spent $56 per resident, higher than the state average of $41 but a far cry from the $149 per person spent in neighboring Wilmette. In per capita spending, the runaway leader in the Pioneer Press study was Glencoe, which spent more than $163 per person.” – Evanston (IL) Review.
The TeleRead take: A TeleRead-style national digital library system wouldn’t instantly do away with the Savage Inequalities, but it could at least reduce them through volume purchases of content and through the inherent economies of e-books and related technologies. Even rich library districts would benefit.
Meanwhile here’s one more reason to work toward this goal:
Ney said the library’s large collection of about 464,000 items is partly a reflection of a staffing shortage that affords too little time to weed out older materials that have outlived their demand and no longer merit shelf space. The library retired only 4,000 books and government documents last year to make room for 31,000 new acquisitions.
Libraries could more easily keep e-book collections current.
Even better, with ebooks there’s less need to “keep current”, since content takes up no physical space. They can keep around old materials that might have some small use left, and don’t have to worry about finding shelf space for new ebooks.