LISNews: Librarian News

Mr. Cooley doesn't "get libraries" because he is incredibly short-sighted. I also get the impression that he's more than a little removed from the average person. The majority of people in my area cannot afford e-readers, let alone computers, or even Internet access. That leaves the library.

Moreover, where does he think the average person get access to information databases like Ebscohost and WilsonWeb? I certainly cannot afford private access to these so I access them through my library.

People like Mr. Cooley are part of the reason our libraries continue to lose funding.

Let's not get worked up about this, please. In the first place, he's almost certainly making an attempt at satire here. But if he's serious, he's expressing a view that's not uncommon. Rather than get upset, recognise that there's a failure to communicate what a library is and does -- and who's fault is that failure?

In the second place, his main point is valid: when books become digital, you don't need a building to house them, so what exactly does that leave for libraries?

There's two issues here. The first is that dunces like Cooley don't realize that the vast majority of useful information is still locked away in costly books. Not just old books, either; each year something like a million books are published, many of which contain information and content that's not available for free on the 'net.

Now, even if they have an inkling of that fact, they don't really get that most people don't have the income necessary to pay for that content. You basically become an editor of a tech site by having the kind of disposable income that can net you a steady stream of gadgets (before you become a writer -- afterwards companies "provide" them); it's no surprise, then, that in their minds only the "poor" need libraries. "Regular" people like tech writers can afford hundreds of books a year and afford to pay 30 bucks for each article they want, right?

(Another interesting and related attack on libraries comes from right-wingers who will argue against the relevance of near about anything -- except the military -- if it means saving a few dollars.)