A few days ago I was reading an article in the Salt Lake Tribune about how Davis county is planning on renovating and expanding their government center, including a new library building. It got me to thinking about libraries and how we use them. In recent years with the mortgage market crash recession and reduced tax revenues many municipalities have found themselves having to find ways to trim their budgets. For many, their sights fell upon... The Library.
I am so happy to hear that, even though my local government (Davis County, Utah) often found itself having to face budget shortfalls and find ways to reduce their budget, they still decided to take advantage of the reduced costs of construction during the recession to build several new public buildings, including a new large library to be the new headquarters for the county library system.
Libraries have long been subject to underfunding and under-appreciation from the politicians of the communities they serve and so they would naturally be a target for budget cuts anyway. But in our modern society the politicians and bureaucrats are asking a valid question... are libraries even relevant anymore.
Libraries have long been societies repositories of knowledge, literature, and the written word... a function that some claim has been made obsolescent by the internet. Indeed, even libraries themselves are contributing to the obsolescence by participating in Project Gutenberg (which is a program aimed at putting all books with expired copyrights online) and GoogleBooks (which is working at putting all books on the internet with copyright protections. Peer-to-Peer networks also provide access to thousands of titles.
With hundreds of thousands of books already online and millions more to come then why do we need libraries?
Will Sherman posted a list of 33 reasons why libraries are still necessary on DegreeTutor.com. Some of my favorites from his list include:
1) Not everything is online - many of the works stored in libraries cannot be fully stored online due to copyright issues.
2) Online does not necessarily mean internet - many online collections cannot be accessed by the internet
3) The internet isn't free, libraries are. And one of the new critical functions of the modern library is providing internet access for its patrons.
9) Libraries have librarians, who are experts in information retrieval, educating patrons, and helping people find what they really need.
11) While e-books are nice, paper books are still better. Being able to hold the book and turn the page for yourself is a different, and arguably richer, experience.
16 & 17) Libraries aren't just book warehouses, they are "intellectual crossroads for working, learning, teaching, and new types of programs." They are places for study groups, art exhibits, and other social interactive events.
20) Wisdom of crowds is untrustworthy. Basically, not everything you read online is true. Even group collaborative works like Wiki's are often influenced by current trends, sensationalization, or by the first or vocal few. Publication, peer-review, and librarians provide quality control to the written word.
23 24) The internet is a mess. "A library provides a clear, standardized set of easily retrievable resources." Despite such advances as search engines and wiki's or organize information most information on the web is buried in the mass and very difficult to identify as relevant to what you want. An as quickly as people find ways to better organize and retrieve information for you people find ways to make their web pages pop up in your searches even if it's not really what you were looking for.
Together with schools, churches, and hospitals, the library is one of the pillars of a good community. They provide a place where one can go to experience a sense calm, of gathering, and of enlightenment; it just feels good to sit in a library and read for a few minutes. Libraries often provide free entertainment, education and often tax and resume assistance. They are centers of civic pride, lifelong learning, and community socialization.
I'm looking forward to my new neighborhood library.
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