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PRIVATIZATION BY THE BOOK  
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Jeff Hagan
August 21, 2026
In The Public Interest
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_ The fight to keep public libraries public continues. _

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When I tell people what I do, and where I work, and say that one of
the public things that is sometimes under threat of privatization is
the public library, that inclusion is usually met with shock.

How and why would a community privatize its library? Surely the
library is one of the very few places that would never see
privatization, right?

The privatization of libraries follows a similar pattern as a lot of
privatization schemes–a financial shortfall creates a crisis (or the
appearance of a crisis) and a magic solution appears: turn the public
good over to a private company who will “run it like a business”
and make it more efficient. 

It’s a prevalent enough concern that the American Library
Association a decade and a half ago published _KEEPING PUBLIC
LIBRARIES PUBLIC_ [[link removed]]_ A
Checklist for Communities Considering Privatization_ _of Public
Libraries_. In it, the organization spells out its policy toward the
practice: “ALA affirms that publicly funded libraries should remain
directly accountable to the public they serve. Therefore, the ALA
opposes the shifting of policymaking and management oversight of
library services for the public to the private for-profit sector.”

Sometimes the privatization of libraries comes about because of a
crisis of a more political stripe, like when a small group of people
gets upset over programming, such as having LGBTQ Pride-themed library
displays. 

Politics may or may not be involved in the case for the Fresno
(California) County Library System, which earlier this summer began
exploring the possibility of turning the management of its
116-year-old library over to a private company
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amid both financial shortfalls and some complaints about programming.
Three years ago, when controversy arose over an initiative to create a
children’s book “review committee,” private equity-backed
Library Systems and Services (LSSI) showed up with a proposal
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to take over and, it claimed, save the library system $85 million over
a ten year period. 

But with private equity’s lust for profit, where would those savings
come from? What happens to the staff, hours of operation, and
transparency and control over decision-making?

At least one library supervisor, Luis Chavez, has expressed opposition
to privatizing the Fresno library system. “Handing over library
operations, budgeting, and management to a private company is the
worst thing we could do. It doesn’t yield savings, pays low wages
and benefits if any and reduces the library experience to a simple
book-borrowing enterprise where certain books and materials can be
censored.”

A scheme to privatize Huntington Beach’s public library system was
rejected after public opinion turned against it, and Santa Clarita
took back control of its library system at the end of its contract
with LSSI. But other libraries, including additional California
libraries, have fallen to the privatizers. 

Public libraries have become more than places to borrow books. They
offer power tools, toys, and seeds to plant gardens. They provide
central locations for community meetings, 3-D printing workshops, a
place for summertime lunches for kids who might otherwise not have
full meals in a day. They are lifelines to people, both rural and
urban. They are the only free-access indoor space not purposed for
commerce. Public libraries are, to borrow a phrase, one of the things
that actually makes America great–provided we can keep them public.

 

_Jeff Hagan, ITPI Communications Director. Jeff is a writer from
Cleveland, Ohio. For 14 years he was editor of the alumni magazine for
his alma mater, Oberlin College. He previously held communication
positions for the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at
Case Western Reserve University and, before that, the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame and Museum._

 

_IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST is a national nonprofit research and policy
organization that studies public goods and services.  We help
community organizations, advocacy groups, public officials,
researchers, and the general public understand how the privatization
of public goods impacts service quality, democracy, equity, and
government budgets.  We also advocate for strengthening, adequately
funding, and building popular support for a government that works
for all of us._

* Public Libraries
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* privatization
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* private equity
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