The intellectually hungry are to be starved in the Britain of David Cameron, and writers and readers are getting alarmed. Those who would normally not have access to those sources will be kept in perfect ignorance. But the trends are, sadly, global, and the library is under assault as the regimes of banksters and technocrats take hold of the public purse.
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There is no doubt that some defenders of the library are attempting to protect an anachronistic ideal. For one thing, libraries are, in many countries at least, shedding their books like piles of unwanted clutter. All too often, books are abandoned or left outside before the massive wave of digitization that is taking place. The hard copy is moving into the world of software, searchable data bases and the type-friendly Google, to say nothing of the irritating social media networks that are now also preoccupying patrons.
Books can be increasingly read and purchased online. Go into, for instance, the San Francisco public library, and you are acutely aware that the perusing of books comes secondary to the use of the computers and audio visual matter. That said, one-third of Americans rely on public libraries for internet access, a staggering statistic by any stretch of the imagination. They are the perfect places to encourage children to read. They provide avenues for instruction in other languages.
Even in the great libraries of the world – take the splendid New York Public Library – an entire department, the prestigious Slavic and Baltic division – was closed due to a dramatic fall in funding. As Paul LeClerc, President and CEO of the NYPL wrote in the Huffington Post (May 6, 2010) 2011 would see ‘a devastating $37 million’ reduction in funds. The Los Angeles County public library system faces an annual deficit of $22 million over the next decade (Nation, Dec 19). Other libraries have had to face periodic closures.
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There is no doubt that some defenders of the library are attempting to protect an anachronistic ideal. For one thing, libraries are, in many countries at least, shedding their books like piles of unwanted clutter. All too often, books are abandoned or left outside before the massive wave of digitization that is taking place. The hard copy is moving into the world of software, searchable data bases and the type-friendly Google, to say nothing of the irritating social media networks that are now also preoccupying patrons.
Books can be increasingly read and purchased online. Go into, for instance, the San Francisco public library, and you are acutely aware that the perusing of books comes secondary to the use of the computers and audio visual matter. That said, one-third of Americans rely on public libraries for internet access, a staggering statistic by any stretch of the imagination. They are the perfect places to encourage children to read. They provide avenues for instruction in other languages.
Even in the great libraries of the world – take the splendid New York Public Library – an entire department, the prestigious Slavic and Baltic division – was closed due to a dramatic fall in funding. As Paul LeClerc, President and CEO of the NYPL wrote in the Huffington Post (May 6, 2010) 2011 would see ‘a devastating $37 million’ reduction in funds. The Los Angeles County public library system faces an annual deficit of $22 million over the next decade (Nation, Dec 19). Other libraries have had to face periodic closures.
