Libraries, Earmarked Funding, and Schadenfreude

With a rare free afternoon during the week, I went to our community's beautiful new architectural masterpiece of a library for the first time, paid a way overdue library fine, and checked out a couple of books on writing comic books. One of which I almost bought from Amazon, and am glad I didn't because its way, way thinner than I expected for the price.

Its a very spacious library, but it could use more books. In the sad and weird way that public funding works, the new building and the lovely, ecology friendly landscaping outside were funded by means of a community measure via special election a few years back. And the funding was generous. The books and media and day to day budget, though, are still funded by the general county library system, which are determined by county and city government councils slicing up a limited pie of money.

(Earmarked funding is the boon and bane of all government funded enterprises - from schools to public libraries to DOE science labs to military research. It's also the answer to 90% of all confusing budgetary questions, like "why can the military afford to fund state of the art computerized AI smart bomber robot things, but our soldiers have no ammo?" Earmarked funding. On the other hand, many cool new things, like gorgeous new public libraries, wouldn't happen without it)

Still, its a lovely library, and I'm just the tiniest bit pleased, in a schadenfreude sort of way, that the gorgeous architecture these days goes to libraries and museums. The eco-friendly landscaping outside is turning into a lovely park, the sort you can have a lovely picnic in the shade while enjoying your library books.