Forget a new downtown library in the hinterlands of baseballs

At this point, despite promising donors, they City of San Diego might as well close the idea of a new main library and re-open the idea at another time.

Why? Because building a library close to the baseball park is like relegating it to a sideline dump—in an area in which there is less incentive to use it.

First of all the location was a complete compromise to the money grabbing land developers—it had nothing to do with the designated location being an ideal library location. It again shows how “corporate interests” continues to dominate politics in almost all aspects of life.

Secondly, now people who travel on the bus, including the handicapped and elderly, will have to take an extra bus or trolley ride to the location since it is no longer on the Broadway corridor. This again will equal less incentive to bother going to the library by people who need such an institution. But then why should civic realities interfere with profits for corporate financiers?

Thirdly a library is normally close to the legislative body on the assumption that good laws required good research. (Note how the Library of Congress is adjacent the legislative branches in D.C.). But city officials today are so far removed from what the idea of a library entails that it just reinforced the “plebian” state, intellectually, that San Diego still is and always has been.

Despite an obvious exaggeration of stereotype the truth is that baseball fans, on average, are not big readers. Sports fans read the sports section of the newspaper and throw the rest of the newspaper away. In fact San Diego, in general, is what the Romans knew as a bread and circus town—give then sustenance, peace and prosperity—and the masses will watch baseball, TV, and wine and dine in the Gaslamp—not giving a wit to more serious issues if it cost time and hassle.

The gay protest is a perfect example of how content and intellectually lazy are most on most issues of significance. When it came time to protest the war—few, if nary any, gays were to be found in number—but when their special interest issue came up—thousands crawled out of the woodwork. Otherwise this group with no kids, which means extra time and resource, and few dependents, had “zilch” time to care about corruption and murder for corporate profit. (If the shoe fits wear it!) But of course we should all give a damn about gay issues.

Hey I have an idea—lets put the library where the homeless use to hang out—in East Village! After all is that not what some think the library—a rest stop, water stop, and telephone exchange for the down and out? Why then they can sneak in from the displaced crannies more eastwardly and find the grand facility that looks like an Easter basket (without a shower mind you) to do their shaven? The banks that are always in the heart of the city ought provide for bathrooms and showers for the homeless—afterall their greed is often enough responsible for increasing homelessness. (But don’t take it to the bank.)

This seems just another reason to compromise with the people who go there—after all was no the banning of beer on the beach a means of chasing away the homeless—in this clearly “fearful” city of distrust for poor and lower classes? Who would want to see those people. Hell they won’t even build a shower bath house on the beach for fear of attracting homeless. What a small-minded community.

If San Diego really had some class it would at least place the library in Balboa Park (with a parking ramp) where it could be on par with other forms of aesthetic wonder. That is if people are going to have to travel expense well at least make the tour interesting and enjoyable—not just some fine paid to the profiteering investors who probably never go to a library. Yet here we are in a city that can’t even make you for some seals despite the human domination of miles and miles of seacoast—as if wealthy families were the center of the universe.

But the biggest problem is that too many short-sighted people think libraries are obsolete—that the days of physical warehouses are over. Yet the purpose of the library was to share the cost of information and education so people did not have to buy everything they wanted to read (which exasperated the division between rich and poor) irrespective of the format.

Secondly people are not going to give away their intellectually property for free—they need to be rewarded for their time and efforts. You can not get free access to many databases and professional journals and books for free—even if the Internet does have a lot of stuff free.

To denigrate a library—which is without a doubt the most important institution in modern society—is to relegate it to the hinterlands where the plebian bourgeoisie seldom see it save it’s weird exterior.

It is better to close the idea to when affordable and when the city has the respect for this institution that it deserves.