Virginia Postrel’s reporting (via Glenn Reynolds) of this shocking display of anti-book triumphalism reminded me of what I saw done to the San Francisco Public Library: a drastic reduction in the number of books, with the former stacks of books replaced by huge uncluttered spaces with Internet terminals here and there. (Plenty of space now for the homeless who live in the place, and for loud undisciplined kids to play there without fear of being shushed so people can read.)
As to the books, they were turned into landfill. When the public noticed, the librarian who did it was fired, but the damage was done:
Dowlin was fired as a result of the scandal involving landfill dumping of books to cover up the botched design of the New Main library, among other failings.
(Call me a cynic, but I just don’t think books are turned into landfill by accident.)
The meme that’s going around is that “The Internet has made traditional libraries obsolete.”
Has it?
If so, then what’s the purpose of all the tax dollars going to libraries?
Comments
18 responses to “Recycle books! And turn libraries into cyber playgrounds!”
I am obsolete. While I’m sitting here typing or making typos into a computer, I still have bookcases full of books all around me, and in that other room, too, which I call my “freedom library” (as it has my books on mythology, colors, etc.). Piles of books on the floor, too.
I have always loved libraries ever since I was a little kid. I’m against book-burning, book-burying, or what have you, even books that I hate. Don’t like a book? Write a book refuting it. John Milton (see his Aeropagitica) must be spinning in his grave.
The Monmouth (Oregon) town library has grown since my childhood from one little room that is now the city hall, to a small building that is now the police station, to a large building now next to the main street (Main Street) where most of the stores are. I used to spend hours in there. I used to well-nigh live in the big library on the campus of Oregon College of Education (now Western Oregon University), coming home only to eat and sleep. When I was in Portland, Oregon, I spent many of my days in Powell’s Bookstore.
Books, books, books, books…. So many more for me to read…. Too many! Can’t wait to get my hands on James Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics, and also must get my hands on G. K. Chesterton’s A Short History of England, Alain de Benoist’s What is a Pagan?…. It never ends….
Book people have a spiritual connection to books that goes beyond whatever particular words and stories are within. There’s something holy about them; the library and the church occupy similar places in my psyche (although I’m more comfortable in the library).
I would expect librarians to be book people. I can see some city administrator deciding to dump the excess books, but a librarian? That’s pretty shocking. Not even a book sale? Just dump them like they were simply a pile of excess wood pulp and ink? Is the primary objection to book burning environmental?
The Internet has made traditional libraries obsolete for the class of folks that ‘inhabit’ the Internet. And even that isn’t a wholly true statement.
I tend to visit my local branch about once a week. I take out items I’d never intend to buy or to use it for pursuing core material in areas I’d never read solely on the Net. Or videos.
I’ve also found it a great place for finding computer texts and older free software. There’s always a book sale going on and they sell off their older computer texts all the time; some of these involve subjects that are neither central to me nor change overmuch – linux manuals, shell programming, etc. and some have disks.
There will always be folks who’d never think of stepping into a library, but it might be that the Internet has shifted the crowd of library patrons in different directions [besides acting as ersatz homeless shelters].
Byrd-
Wholly agreed. True book people are as rare as true art people. There aren’t many who’re quietly bothered & saddened to see dried-out fly husks on a table of dusty remainders… Our gentle madness is often too solitary a thing.
The lesat I can say for books is that they still work when the power is out, and you can read them without having to spend thousands of dollars on hardware and software first.
Also, if you depend on text via the Internet, how do you know someone didn’t diddle with the text when you weren’t looking? Remember how the unedited footage of Rummy squirming at an unexpected question just vanished? Mary Cheney’s writing is equally hard to find.
You can’t curl up on the couch with a mug of cocoa on a winter day with a laptop. Ditto poolside, cold adult beverage on a hot summer’s day.
But if some people are not frequenting the library, it doesn’t have anything to do with loss of interest in books.
Libraries used to be santuaries of reverent quiet…for reader, researcher and student.
Long fiction/literature just cannot be savored via ‘puter screen.
:::sigh:::
“how do you know someone didn’t diddle with the text”?
Good question. Embarrassing facts and people can’t be made to disappear out of books, can they?
The next big thing is to make page-sized palm pilots that you can download books on. Imagine, next time you fly a plane you only have to take one monitor and not 4 books (in case you finish one and 2 are cruddy).
I have a giant bookshelf full of things to read, or things to loan to other people. But every time I move I have to decide what’s important enough to carry out of state, what can be sold or donated, and which books are junked. A single book storage-device would save me all that hassle (and keep me from buying more cheap bookshelves).
Eric, the probability of electronic revisionism pales beside the probability of lost information if libraries dispose of large quantities of books without checking their availability online.
I don’t know what portion of printed books are indeed so available, but I suspect it is not all that high overall. Do you know what is being done to build a ‘universal electronic library’, or even if such has been seriously proposed?
I’d like a big portion of library money to be spent converting out of print books into digital media. The switchover to full digital won’t come for a while, but it will inevitably come.
Fact is it is MUCH easier to find a book u like online, MUCH cheaper- MUCH better for the environment- MUCH better in every way. Curl up with a book? Curl up with your customized reader in which you keep ALL the books you’ve EVER loved. This book has your favorite font, it scrolls or graphically changes pages at your pace, automatically, by reading your eye movements- it allows you to instantly send feedback about how good or bad it is, etc. etc. etc.
The gov should be pushing this change, heavily, imo.
Nah…I don’t see e-books making any serious headway. Too much problems with screen-squinting migraines, etc…
I do, however, see possibilities with text-to-voice software. Currently, books-on-tape are far more popular than books-on-disk. That kind of technology dovetails very well into an existing niche.
And you could prob’ly pump it into your iPod.
Ja, eure Reden, die so blinkend sind,
In denen ihr der Menschheit Schnitzel kr?uselt,
Sind unerquicklich wie der Nebelwind,
Der herbstlich durch die d?rren Bl?tter s?uselt!
No, I think HD is right about the inevitability of digital conversion of books. The problem is that somehow, somewhere, the actual physical books MUST be stored. There’s an ever-present-if-still-slight possibility of a catastrophe like the Fall of Rome, an invasion with concomitant loss of electricity, or a massive magnetic burst or some other disaster — and electronic storage could be more quickly and easily destroyed than books. A long view of history (it seems to me) cautions that we preserve our books.
I’m not sure about the longterm wisdom of making text entirely dependent on electricity.
I’m keeping my books. We haven’t abolished walking just because we have cars.
I think that there is a real place for libraries and for librarians. Laymen (that’s you non-librarians) aren’t as information savvy as you think that you are.
But there’s no justification for maintaining public libraries. They should be privatized.
John:
That was a very good argument for privatizing libraries. I’ve more and more concluded that schools absolutely must be privatized. Privatizing roads, dams, space exploration, etc., is a noble ideal as well. Ideally, I’d love to see military forces, police, prisons, etc., privatized. Maybe a thousand years from now….
Dawn’s fantasy: a thermonuclear missile silo, or submarine in every swimming pool, in every backyard, to keep the Commies away…. The style of that….
Back to my good old memories of the library: Don’t eat a Tootsie Roll Pop in the library. And don’t eat a Sloppy Joe in the library! I know, I know, that dumb funny guy. ha! ha!
I wouldn’t go as far as to privatize the military. But certainly libraries and schools should be opened to the benefits of free market competition.