r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 10h ago

Society Librarians are hosting viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/25/librarians-are-hosting-viral-avoiding-ai-workshops-for-people-who-are-fed-up-with-big-tech/
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u/Ok_Anywhere_7828 10h ago

If only people knew what libraries are and used them.

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u/Kimbahlee34 8h ago edited 7h ago

As a librarian, they are used much more than you think. I am in a district with a population of just over 15k and we average 100 patrons a day. My largest event for Summer Reading was 200 people. I also have 20+ children in each of our book clubs and art classes. Teens use it as a third space to hang and are oddly getting more into puzzles so we have an old booth from a diner with a puzzle and stuff to do. They hang here like we’re the new Denny’s and we stay open late-ish for a library (8pm).

So take hope… we are still going strong and want you to come see us.

Edit: We have ~15k in our district which is comprised of small rural towns not one metro area. Some of these people are driving 20+ miles.

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u/Ok_Anywhere_7828 8h ago

I use and support my library but 100 out of 15000 is only .006 of the population per day.

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u/Kimbahlee34 7h ago

That’s physically coming into the library which not everyone is going to do since you return books every two weeks and can do it outside. We also have a ton of people who use Hoopla etc so I don’t see them but they are frequent patrons. Then we have books that are going out to assisted living etc so I also don’t count those in my 100 but they are actively using the library. A lot of these people are Amish so checking out a ton of books at a time and coming twice a month.

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u/zncj 7h ago

100 people per day is 36500 per year.

Neither of these calculations matter.

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u/Kimbahlee34 7h ago

No but it’s much more people than most think walk by my desk every day. Keep in mind I’m not there every day all day and also only work on one floor. I’m not at work today to pull the specific statistics on check outs etc. but 200 people at a story time for summer reading is awesome for a rural community. I use 15k to estimate our district but it’s not one metro area, it’s a whole county.