A recent Forbes opinion article, that has since been deleted, called for the online bookseller and catch-all, Amazon, to take over library duties in communities across America to eliminate the "Library Tax." Naturally, this has librarians up in arms across the country, responses coming in from book lovers and community members alike.

Albany County Public Library is much more than just a "place to enjoy books," as the author of the Forbes article says. They provide to the community much more than just the ease of convenience to find books and read them. Things that Amazon could not fill with a capitalist approach to force consumers to hand over more money for their reading pleasure.

Our local library offers children's programs year-round, giving children of all ages the opportunity to be entertained, inspired, and educated even when they're not in school. A life-long love of reading is grown from the stacks of the local library. These programs include the Reading Bash coming up this Friday, Summer Reading Programs and much more.

For adults, the offerings of Albany County Public Library expand even further, offering genealogy help, technical support, help with filing taxes and health insurance, film series, and events designed to continue that love of reading and research well into adulthood.

If you're looking for just the basics a library offers, ACPL has that covered too, with books on every topic you could imagine, audio-books and ebooks available through the Overdrive app, a wide selection of movies, tv shows, local historical archives, and even board games to check out.

So while Amazon Prime costs, Audible charges, costs of items on the site continue to rise and the treatment of their employees being called into question, the Albany County Public Library still offers everything you could need- just ask- and all for the low cost of a small library tax. How much is that library tax, you might ask?

An average of about $76 per household. How many Amazon books do you think that would buy you?

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