Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America

Seth Cohn sethcohn at gnuhampshire.org
Wed Apr 7 15:23:48 EDT 2010


On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 12:56 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:
> Libraries have been public in the US primarily since the late 1700s.
> There is an ongoing debate as to which is the first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_library

"The library in the New Hampshire town of Peterborough claims to be
the first publicly-funded library; it opened in 1833."

There is a big difference between public and publicly _funded_.  Most
of the libraries you cite as being 'public' in the 1700s were
'private' in most every sense you'd recognize today, despite being
open to the 'public'

But this list isn't for debating library history.  My overall point
was that looking toward governmental regulation of the net, even for
'good reasons', as with all 'governmental regulation' in general is a
mistaken approach to whatever problems you might want to solve.  There
are _always_ better answers.


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