Tue
Nov 3 2009
08:05 pm
Libraries and Homeless
By: StaceyDiamond

For years I remember a public News Sentinel being available with a wood stick in it at the downtown library. I did not realize they had stopped that as I almost always buy a paper. They still do have that at the North Knoxville library. Today I asked for the Sentinel and had to go up two flights of stairs in a tiny monitored room and have a librarian get it for me. I was testy with her, read a bit and left carrying a free pamphlet I had picked up downstairs and was asked if I had taken part of the paper!! I felt like I was in a prison library. A friend who went by the UT library for research and was only allowed to use a stand up computer felt the same way.
It gives me a complex sometimes if you are a pedestrian or library user you can be profiled as homeless, particularly if you question the situation. I feel like saying and I am sure others do as well, I have a college education, a home and I'm pissed!! I can see some of this, but requiring two flights of stairs and a teeny room and monitor to read a paper seems over the top!
michael kaplan's picture

you're right, the newspapers

Submitted by michael kaplan on Wed, 2009/11/04 - 2:05pm.

you're right, the newspapers should be available in the main reading room, near the periodicals.

Anonymously Nine's picture

How odd. Pilot gives away

Submitted by Anonymously Nine on Wed, 2009/11/04 - 2:11pm.

How odd. Pilot gives away the KNS free on Fridays but you have to go to a secure room in the library to read the paper?

Somebody's picture

I'm not tracking with you.

Submitted by Somebody on Wed, 2009/11/04 - 2:28pm.

I'm not tracking with you. What does this have to do with being homeless?

"It gives me a complex sometimes if you are a pedestrian or library user you can be profiled as homeless, particularly if you question the situation."

Isn't everyone who goes into the library and makes use of it by defnition a "library user?" Unless the library has a drive-through window, don't you pretty much have to be a pedestrian to get inside? Does having a college education and a home make you pissed?

StaceyDiamond's picture

homeless

Submitted by StaceyDiamond on Wed, 2009/11/04 - 2:32pm.

The libraries at UT and downtown used to be more free places until the influx of homeless using the internet 5 years or so ago. They (the homeless) can be a problem and just as much so the libraries reaction to them. If I was going to try and steal a paper I'd at least try for the NY Times. If they are that weird over papers they should not have them.

Somebody's picture

Seems like newspaper

Submitted by Somebody on Wed, 2009/11/04 - 3:06pm.

Seems like newspaper thievery is the apparent problem, not so much the homeless themselves. Did you ask and were you told why it was that you were required to go to a different place to read the newspaper? It seems a bit unfair to condemn a whole class of people for something when it's probably a select few who nabbed the newspapers.

If you were poor and/or homeless would you want to be derided as an "influx" for using a publicly available resource?

Up Goose Creek's picture

Classifieds

Submitted by Up Goose Creek on Wed, 2009/11/04 - 9:10pm.

Since the homeless might be looking for jobs or apartments, it seems like a good investment of public funds to have newspapers readily available.

Maybe the NS can be persuaded to donate unsold papers from the day before?

____________________________
more construction, less politics

Anonymously Nine's picture

Pilot gives away free papers

Submitted by Anonymously Nine on Wed, 2009/11/04 - 9:54pm.

Pilot gives away free papers every Friday. The KNS couldn't drop off a bundle at the homeless centers? How much could it possibly cost? All we hear from the KNS is moving the county forward. Why don't they actually do something?

michael kaplan's picture

you're absolutely right.

Submitted by michael kaplan on Thu, 2009/11/05 - 3:38pm.

you're absolutely right. wonder whether pilot buys the papers, or the arrangement is part of the "deal"...

michael kaplan's picture

another possibility is for

Submitted by michael kaplan on Thu, 2009/11/05 - 3:40pm.

another possibility is for friends of the library to donate their KNS copies.

StaceyDiamond's picture

papers

Submitted by StaceyDiamond on Thu, 2009/11/05 - 7:49pm.

I was directed up to a tiny room and then had to ask for what paper and it was gotten from the back. I have never experienced this before. From working at papers I know there are always tons thrown out that could be given to all kinds of stuff. BTW, this is not about class, the Haslams or the Candy Factory, or Scripps. Its about draconian measures at libraries that seem to be about the homeless.

Somebody's picture

Seems?

Submitted by Somebody on Fri, 2009/11/06 - 9:00am.

"Its about draconian measures at libraries that seem to be about the homeless."

That reads like you're assuming something, but didn't actually ask. Did you ask a librarian why the newspaper was in a different place?

Sam's picture

At the Fountain City Library

Submitted by Sam on Fri, 2009/11/06 - 6:31pm.

At the Fountain City Library you leave either your library card or driver license with the desk and then when you finish with the newspaper you get it return to you. There is an apology posted saying something like dishonest people make it hard on everybody.

StaceyDiamond's picture

ain't worth it

Submitted by StaceyDiamond on Sun, 2009/11/08 - 9:48pm.

From now on if I want to hold a paper in my hands it either 75 cents or free one at Pilot on Fri's. People may have started stealing because they stopped putting the paper in wood sticks, which is still better than turning over a license for a 75 cent paper.

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