Report: Solar Power for Minnesota

Date: 8 Jun 2012 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

This report, done for the Solar Works for Minnesota campaign, explores the value of solar power on schools, libraries, and other public buildings in Minnesota.  It was co-authored by John Farrell of ILSR and Christina Mills of IEER. Download the Report Highlights Minnesotans spend more than $20 billion dollars every year on these energy imports. With … Read More

Book Burning Hoax Results in Huge Support for Michigan Public Library

Sometimes it takes a truly imaginative hoax to jolt us into realizing how much we value the public. That’s what happened in Troy, Michigan last summer. Nationwide, over 90 percent of public library money comes from local property tax dollars.  Thus every time a public library needs money it has to go to the voters.  In … Read More

All Hail the PUBLIC Library

Date: 29 Apr 2011 | posted in: From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 5 Facebooktwitterredditmail

The free lending public library is a uniquely American invention. Neighborhood based, locally financed, open to all, the public library is a treasure that finds itself too often on the periphery of public policy and attention. Given the remarkable past and present of the public library that should change.… Read More

NY Public Library ‘Trades Naming Rights’ to Greedy Hedge Fund Billionaire for Big Bucks

Recently, the New York Public Library announced it would rename its main library the Stephen A. Schwarzman Library in return for his contribution of $100 million to its $1 billion capital fund drive. As a born and bred New Yorker, I recoiled at the news and the message it sends to future generations of New Yorkers.

The 42nd Street library is by all accounts the jewel in the crown of the New York Public Library system. In both form and function, it honors the word"public." Henry Hope Reed has accurately described the library as "a people’s palace of triumphant glory." … Read More