Libraries Closing

[sky_dive]

3 of the libraries in my hometown are closing. They are all close to the city areas, and near major bus stops and train stations. They are moving into one, that is far away from any part of the city, and you have to walk 3/4th of a mile from the nearest train station. I just wanted to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

[Turtle]

Sucks. The closest library to me closed fairly recently after some storm damage. Great building too. It's a shame that we as a society don't value libraries more. They provide access to so much more than paper that's been printed on. And librarians are the best kind of people.

[TM2 Dinobot]

It sucks, that's my thoughts.

[sky_dive]

It sucks to me, cause the library was literally right down the street from me.

[MiniFiend UK]

I don't know where in the world you are but they having been doing this in the UK for the last few years. The closures have been brought about by local government saying they want to make cuts to save money. in my area we where able to stop closer of librarys for awhile by bypassing the local politicians and campaigning the main parliament in London that the closer of said librarys would effect most the poorer, students an unemployed in the area's who would not be able to get access to everything from books for learning/studying to PC and internet access for job searchs.

The closer of libarys does burn me as I see it as a way for those with the power to keep the lower classes down and cut off another way for pll to learn, educate and better themselves.

[buttheadsmate]

The closer of libarys does burn me as I see it as a way for those with the power to keep the lower classes down and cut off another way for pll to learn, educate and better themselves.

As a kid from a council-house there were very few books in our house & with the encouragement of my mum I joined the library . I learned more from the books I read during that period than anything any professional teacher ever taught me before or since. As MiniFiend says,closing libraries is another nefarious step to stifle the masses. We have a mobile-library which er-indoors visits when it arrives in our town each week ,I would, but I very rarely read books of any description. When offered as a present a 'kindle/whatever' from me recently she declined politely with the words "library-nails,no thankyou!" ......not strictly true maybe but difficult to argue with!

[MisterPL]

I don't think the intention is to stifle the masses or keep the lower classes down and out but that will definitely be the end result of these short-sighted decisions. Governments only look at money without regard to the value of that which it's being spent on. Libraries have always offered a huge return on investment. Unfortunately it can't be measured in cash so they're among the first to go.

I'm a commercial artist who does NOT work on web design so every time I hear "Print is dead" I cringe. First because I know it isn't true but mostly because it seems people WANT it to be dead. I'm wondering what all these people are going to do with their e-readers when the lights ultimately go out. They'll be stuck reading the classics and very old news.

[hellpop]

As a librarian, I am of course disappointed to hear about any library closing. We are, unfortunately, often considered a luxury item in public budgets, even though we remain a vital part of most communities. The key for public libraries in remaining relevant is figuring out how to shift our resources to best meet our patrons' shifting needs. At my library, for example, we offer e-books that can be downloaded directly to e-reader devices. It's still a very new service (and we are very limited by the titles we have available), but clearly an important one to offer.

Anyway, the idea that libraries are unimportant in the 21st Century is clearly false, no matter what politicians think.

[BannersID]

This thread makes me cringe. My wife owns a kindle, I am stalwart about printed material. There is a book by Robert Heinlein called "Farnhams Freehold" a post-apocalyptic story about a fella and his family trying to just survive. The barter system plays a huge role in their lives and books even more so in that system. Pops hangs a sign on his door to the effect "We barter here, Books treated like gold" I forget the exact wording and don't own a copy of the title anymore but that was the gist of it. Colored my view of printed material for life.

The slow conversion from print to digital seems awfully short sighted to me. Newspapers going by the wayside I get that, but books, those should be revered.

The movie scene floating through my head is Indiana Jones watching Nazis torch a huge pile of books and having a scowl of disgust on his face. There is a reason Indy is pissed off, and while digital conversion is NOT book burning I just can't help but think it is leading us down a similar path.

Just my very humble opinion.