It seems more and more that actual books are not being ordered in my academic library. Instead, we are purchasing more resources online. From databases to serial access, physical materials are becoming obsolete. While this may very well be the wave of the future, I cannot help but feel sad for the book, newspaper, serial itself. I suppose this concept calls into question, "Exactly what IS a library if the library does not actually have physical materials?" Imagine a library that only hosts computers and other technological necessities such as various software and programs. A place where there are no shelves because the materials are available online through the computer. While this might be a stretch that there would be NO books at all, it still is the truth that buying monographs have drastically decreased over the years. Serials is no surprise at all. Same with newspaper. But books????
This situation is greatly impacted by our current economic condition where libraries (academic and public) are trying desperately to make budgets work with cuts and slashes all over the place. If you don't want to lose staff, something else must go. Materials budgets are shrinking like Shrinky Dinks. No kidding. And staff are left wondering what kind of impact this will have on tomorrow's patrons. Will they even notice? Will we ever get the money back to buy more books if the time arises? Who knows.
This whole scenerio reminds me of this clip I found on Youtube where a monk is having a heck of time understanding how to open a book. I find it humorous but also quite true. How many patrons, especially students never think to "go to the books" because the Internet has it all? How many books sit on the shelves without ever being cracked open? Any weeding project will showcase a few of those books that never saw the light of day before being removed from the collection.
9 comments:
A library without books at all is definitely a worst nightmare for many librarians, and patrons too! While I can somewhat imagine this scenario occurring at the academic library level (though barely), it is reassuring to know that there will (hopefully) always still be public libraries, where this would be (hopefully) impossible. It all brings home the fact that while the whole economic crisis is obviously a terrible thing, it does serve one positive purpose for public libraries: more patrons are visiting, and our visibility/importance is improving.
It seems to me that even librarians do not fully grasp the knowledge potential of books. Not only is there more knowledge potential in books, but you don't need to waste electricity to read them! I like you comment about the meaning and definition of a library. Perhaps the concept of the library is misunderstood, but is there any way of rectifying this?
Peter,
There is an article in ALA's American Libraries called "Inside, Outside & Online" which addresses the very issue of "What is a library?" Here is the link:
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ala/docDetail.action?docID=10275610&page=40
I would absolutely hate it if the library lost its books. To me, there's something so comforting about walking into a library and seeing the books and then physically holding one in my hand. I hate reading things on the computer and I would never buy a Kindle. I know it costs more, but holding a book to me is SO MUCH BETTER than looking at a screen. I have faith there are many out there who feel the same way and I hope these same people continue to support their local libraries to keep the books there.
I hope we never do get to a point where libraries will no longer have books. In my opinion I love the feeling of physically holding a book and being able to read it. I am not a fan of e-books, I find them really hard to read so I rather dish the extra money and buy the book or just check the book out from a library.
I think that some of the push to make more things available electronically is that it shortens some of the publishing time. Information becomes available to patrons at the click of a button, rather than first having to be manipulated by someone like myself, then printed, bound, shipped and catalogued. The bad things are the amount of faith you must place on the groups storing the data... that they will not remove it from your access.
Never fear, Dawn. Within the last 2 weeks, I have checked out several books from the University Library for research for another class and although I have requested articles through Illiad (a favorite tool), I still end up printing them off because I get tired of sitting at my computer. Even carrying around a laptop and reading from that is a pain. I'm not sure books will ever go out of style - they're just too convenient. I do think that the ability to buy books online might hurt libraries since it's so easy to shop from home. I've purchased books on line for as little as 94cents with, of course, a standard delivery charge of $2.49. Yet, once I've got it, it's mine, I don't have to remember to return it on time or check it out again. Yet, for research purposes there is no better place than a library full of books.
I always felt bad in college because I would usually use electronic resources rather than "going to the books." Part of that was simply that books were usually out of date compared to online journal articles updated constantly - even considering the 1-2 year lag on some online databases - and as such it made more sense to use journal articles. Usually I'd only get books for leisure reading, not academic.
I imagine this problem will only continue to grow as cloud computing increases and more offline materials are brought onto the 'net and cross-referenced.
I don't think libraries will ever lose the books but collections will undoubtedly keep evolving. That's not so bad, is it?
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