@kitten yeah 10€ for adults, 5€ if you’re a student or apprentice or doing national service [wow, they brought that discount back quickly], and free for children and also free if you’re receiving unemployment benefit or disability benefit or one of any number of other types of welfare
@dpk@kitten wtf ,,, how is this the one issue the US is significantly more progressive on than germany ???? i'm so fascinated by how this could have happened i have never had to pay for a library and couldn't imagine having to do so, the whole point is that they're free? and offer so many services beyond books for people who couldn't otherwise afford to access them - computer/internet use, ebooks, databases, streaming music and video services, color printing and scanning, classes and workshops, study spaces, etc
@kitten Oh yeah - City of Nürnberg making renting books from the library require a yearly subscription (<20€/y iirc). Because it would cost the city 500k€/y.
But they have enough money to build that stupidly expensive Autobahn tunnel for a minimum of 300M€ (and that's only the part that the city will have to pay) which is a project right from the 60s and also will be the next Stuttgart 21 for sure.
@kitten In the US you typically don't pay for a library card in your local area, and that gets you access to the rest of the state, and books will be shipped around between libraries in the state for you, and you can borrow ebooks from other libraries in the state too.
However, if you want access to another state's network of libraries you usually have to physically go to the state to set up an account, and pay a fairly small annual fee, like $30. 🧵1/2
@kitten Dunno about EU, but in the US, libraries are getting financially fucked by publishers with regards to ebooks. they already pay more than cover price to buy physical books, but ebooks are many many multiples of the cost, and that $$$ either gets them a limited time access to the ebook, or a limited number of lends of it. Libraries also regularly have to do fundraisers because they don't get enough $ from the town / state. 🧵2/2
@masukomi here, the first part is the same. the second... no idea, to be honest. I know payment would never be required, they just don't handle money, but I'm not sure if they might require an address in that region to be able to get a card. and even if they do, I don't think they ask for proof of residence anyway, I don't think I had to provide that in Madrid :neocat_think:
@kitten Had to check, standard fee is 24€/year, I usually use the option to get a slight discount if you pay for 2 years at once. That would buy maybe one or two books (and not even a chapter in academic publishing), so you definitely get value for money. Makes me wonder what part of the library budget the fees actually cover, I'd expect most is city funding anyway (which is well-spent, just curious now).
