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I don't think it's really fair to compare IA to a real library. The Seattle public library for example spends 76% of their operating budget on employees, most of who are doing public services work. The second major expense for a real library is paying for books and materials, again IA doesn't do any of that.

It's not fair to compare an institution with a website.

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I thought the comparison was unfair as well.

Physical libraries also tend to be the defacto life help desk for a lot of people out there.

They’re both institutions but one wants recognition and nice buildings the other wants to be an immutable archive unlike Wikipædia which curates and memory holes issues that don’t align with its thinking. The other one just marches on without flashy managers at the helm making life easy for themselves.

Seattle public library is also an archive as well as a provider of many beautiful and free third spaces. The downtown library is very cool. I bet there’s stuff in the stacks there that is not digitized anywhere.

The nice buildings provide a public space sheltered from the elements to millions of people a year. I love the IA but it really isn't a worthy comparison.

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