Are Libraries Dying?

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Clarissa

August 25, 2012

I just read this post from a fellow library lover who asks whether libraries are dying out as places that not only store knowledge but also offer a space for quiet, uninterrupted, slow contemplation:

Over the past fifty five years, since I first entered the University of Nottingham as an undergraduate student, university libraries have always played a central role in my life. The moment I enter one of those libraries, I feel at home. The sweet sense of silence that always greets me, in a world of largely senseless noise, is a tonic to my soul.

I know exactly what this academic means. Libraries are like small temples where you can immerse yourself in an environment that can hardly be repeated anywhere else.

This gave me an idea for a new series of posts. Everywhere I travel, I will visit a library, take photos of it, and write a post on it. This will be my tribute to libraries and to everything I gained from my relationship with them.

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3 responses to “Are Libraries Dying?”

charlesrowley

August 25, 2012

That will be a wonderful tribute!

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the twisted spinster

August 26, 2012

They might be, but one thing that killed them, at least in the US (or at least in those parts of it where I’ve gone to libraries, mainly Florida and Virginia, where I’ve lived and live), is the removal of the “be quiet!” rule. When I was a kid I can remember that “sound of silence” and the feeling of entering a temple because of it. That feeling enforced the idea that you were now safe and separated from the noisy, mundane, ignorance-yammering world outside. The library was a Different place, a place where people read books and learned things, there were no kids running around like little maniacs, no loud music or barking dogs.

That silence was enforced by a formidable figure, the Librarian, who in the US was stereotypically depicted as (and often actually was) a stern old spinsterish lady in glasses, the better to glare at you over them when you giggled out loud or talked above a whisper to your buddies. Those ladies were my heroines and I wanted to grow up and be one of them. So I grew up, and all the librarians turned into government employees with name tags who were always in meetings, and the libraries were transformed into Information Centers with bright kiosks of computers and the intimidating rows of bookshelves were moved further and further back to make way for things like walls of posters exhorting people to promote reading (though of what, all I could see were magazine racks and a few small shelves in the corner with the latest best-selling romances and horror novels) and art projects by local schools, and kids were given the run of the buildings instead of being confined to the Children’s Section so adult readers could get some peace and quiet, and they rang with voices, and no one shushed anybody because “self-esteem,” and book stores were opening all over town and I was now working and had my own money so I bought books and hardly ever went to the library unless I had to.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  August 26, 2012
  
  This sounds really horrible. Who’d even want to be in such a place? Now I think I definitely need to start visiting libraries and writing posts on them.
  
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