Should they? I admit that public libraries are one of the best reasons for taxes I can think of. Libraries should be making information available to people, and information (boy, I'm certainly giving away my age here!) wants to be free. Does this mean that libraries must always be in danger of being closed for lack of funds because the public isn't interested in all that information? Frankly, even though I've already come out in favor of taxes, I can also envisage a scenario in which authors and publishers contribute a small percentage of their profits to the maintenace of libraries. In internet terms that would be even easier: search facilities, rather than being privately owned should be public. Their sole purpose should be fast and accurate information finding and retrieval. The funding for this service, and for the continual development of better tools to accomplish it, could come from a minimal tax on each page that gets listed in their catalogs.

Of course a vision such as this seems to go counter to the central ethos of the market economy which is that the purpose of everything is to make a profit, and that the public will benefit from the pursuit of this purpose. Did I already say that I still cling to the idea that information wants to be free?

Go to: Is anybody out there making money off the internet? or,
Go to: Only a pawn in their game