In the age of the Internet, of what use is a library?

[Tucson_Tim]

I'm surprised that I've not seen anyone else mention the very first thing that comes to my mind when I think of a library. A library provides a quiet environment that's conducive to reading and study. Many kids simply don't have a good place to study that is quiet and free from distractions.

Yes. How true. But not just kids. I had forgotten that I did most of my studying while in college in some back corner of the university library.

[Gillianren]

When I was in high school, it was also common to use the library as a meeting place for study groups.

[mike alexander]

The Britannica! We had one. 1948 edition. My parents didn't have a lot, but I'd guess they were told it would be good for the children. My favorite volume was 'Brain to Castin'.

[Romanus]

This is an interesting point...

Sometime last year, I dropped by one of my favorite branch libraries, only to find the place practically deserted; every other time I've been there it's been fairly busy, especially for such a small facility. Inquiring as to what was up, it turns out that the Internet was down. Not the computer catalog, but the Internet. Zip--instant ghost town. I found that depressing.

Anywho, I think libraries have benefits beyond their reference / research sources, or the theoretically unlimited quantities of books you can check out for free. Anyone can walk in and enjoy the silence. Anyone can come in and look out the window while reading a book and daydream. The hundred-dollar facsimile and the cheap paperback are equally accessible. And as others have stated, they're refuges; I spent many a lunch period hungry in the library rather than jostling with my peers in the cafeteria--not because I liked them less, but because I loved books more. Thirty minutes of quiet sanity between the inanity of morning and afternoon classes...that's worth more than a cheeseburger, I think.

For me, there's something truly grand about walking through aisles of old and new books without the bustle of a bookstore, picking up something you know dozens or hundreds of people have probably used before, and placing yourself in that chain of responsibility by checking it out and--in some way--contracting yourself to finish it. I dunno...as much as I love bookstores, rare indeed is the bookstore that's enchanted me as much as even a small library.

In other words, they're another kind of clean, well-lighted place.

[Tucson_Tim]

Some dialog from the movie Se7en:

William Somerset: Gentlemen, gentlemen... All these books, a world of knowledge at your fingertips, and you play poker all night.
Library Guard: We've got culture!
George, Library Night Guard: [turns on classical music] How's this for culture?

[danscope]

More is the pity that someone is not there to guide their life. Lucky are we who enjoy such luxury.
Best regards,
Dan

[Gillianren]

Sometime last year, I dropped by one of my favorite branch libraries, only to find the place practically deserted; every other time I've been there it's been fairly busy, especially for such a small facility. Inquiring as to what was up, it turns out that the Internet was down. Not the computer catalog, but the Internet. Zip--instant ghost town. I found that depressing.

Our library's catalog is online. There's also a very nice area in the center of most of the local libraries with benches, chairs, plants, and a skylight. Oh, sure, it's usually grey up through there, but it's still a very soothing place to sit.

[danscope]

" I cannot live without books ".

Thomas Jefferson

[gzhpcu]

Congratulations on having a lot more money than I did as a child--than I do now.

Actually, I did what I could to earn money as a child: I used to mow lawns, baby-sit, do odd-jobs. I would only spend the money on used books, never candy, toys or anything else. I could never afford new books, so I went to used book stores. I remember searching and searching for The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson, until I found one for 10 cents... I was reading mostly Sir Walter Scott, Alexander Dumas, Rafael Sabatini, Charles Dickens...

[Gillianren]

Even if I had spent every cent I earned as a child on used books, I still wouldn't've been able to afford all the books I read. That's why libraries were invented.

[gzhpcu]

Even if I had spent every cent I earned as a child on used books, I still wouldn't've been able to afford all the books I read. That's why libraries were invented.

Guess you were lucky to have a library in the vicinty.... I didn't...

[BigDon]

I don't live in San Francisco proper but in one of the nearby towns close enough to hit with the same nuke. We have a beautiful main library next to the City Hall and just down the street from me.

To this day I remember when I was in first grade, back in 1967, and we took a field trip to learn what a library was and how excited I got to discover that the books were free! You just had to bring them back! I remember how amused my mother was when I came home from school and "explained to her" what a library was.

Mrs. Rose was the head librarian of the children's section. I was in my late twenties when she passed and I was saddened. What also made me sad was when the demographics of my town changed and they built a new "main" library west of where I live, beyond easy strolling distance. So most people go there.

[geonuc]

I don't think I've been in a library since law school (2005) but I do recognize the importance they have to communities.

[eric_marsh]

Speaking of libraries, you should see the beautiful one we have in Lockhart, TX. It's the oldest continuously used library in the state of Texas. That's the kind of thing I love about this town.

http://www.lockhart-tx.org/web98//hi...arklibrary.asp

[Gillianren]

Guess you were lucky to have a library in the vicinty.... I didn't...

No school library, even? I find that remarkably hard to believe. Having looked at a map of the LA library system, I find it hard to believe either way.

[danscope]

"You were lucky to have a school. Best we could do was read a day old newspaper while working at mill, and if millowner caught us, he'd dock us 3 weeks pay and thrash us wi' his belt......if we were lucky!."
From 'a fifth Yorkshire man' .
Dan

[gzhpcu]

No school library, even? I find that remarkably hard to believe. Having looked at a map of the LA library system, I find it hard to believe either way.

I lived on Corning Street in West L.A. and went to a parochial school, St. Mary Magdalene. No school library. This was in the fifties. You don't have to believe it, but it is true nevertheless. A kid on a bicycle does not get very far. I only had a couple of used bookshops nearby. My mom did not want me to wander. Quite a doubting Thomas aren't you?....

[gzhpcu]

But anyway, this is all irrelevant. Give me Amazon and the internet any day. Can't stay embedded in an archaic past, time to move with the times...
After all, we are in the digital information age. We don't still read from papyrus scrolls do we? Or would you, if the library of Alexandria hadn't burned down?

[mike alexander]

Why not make holograms of the Taj Mahal and then tear it down?

[Tucson_Tim]

The Conficker worm just ate all my digital books, photos, and music. It came to my PC a day early . . . .

[Fazor]

Ouch. Well, I guess what'll happen is tomorrow a Window will pop-up and say
"A virus has just deleted all your media files! ...
... April Fool's! It deleted them yesterday. Haha gotcha."

[kleindoofy]

This thread reminds me of a scene from the film "Good Will Hunting":

Will Hunting (to Harvard student): "you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a %$°§*+# education you could of got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library."

[Tucson_Tim]

I'm having the mods close this thread. Swift opened an almost identical subject thread shortly after I opened this one - no sense having two open threads with the same content.

[Gillianren]

I lived on Corning Street in West L.A. and went to a parochial school, St. Mary Magdalene. No school library. This was in the fifties. You don't have to believe it, but it is true nevertheless. A kid on a bicycle does not get very far. I only had a couple of used bookshops nearby. My mom did not want me to wander. Quite a doubting Thomas aren't you?....

Yes. Yes, I am. I find it at best unlikely that any school--even in the fifties--didn't have a library. I also find it unlikely that any parent interested enough in education to have an Encyclopaedia Britannica in the house would be so down on education as to prevent a child's ever visiting a library. My mom drove us to the downtown library on Sundays, as our local branch wasn't open.

[John Jaksich]

Speaking of libraries and cyberspace--why not build your own private library in the confines of home...it sure beats having to track down a classic book that has may have a page or two torn from it

[Gillianren]

Speaking of libraries and cyberspace--why not build your own private library in the confines of home...it sure beats having to track down a classic book that has may have a page or two torn from it

I have one. I cannot encompass nearly as many volumes as my local public library, to say nothing of the system as a whole. (For one thing, I live in a one-bedroom apartment.) I have almost never encountered books with pages torn out of them; on those two or three occasions when I have, I have reported it to the librarians; if it were a classic, they'd get me another copy.

I did once check out my college library's collection of William Safire On Language books. Someone had gone through and "corrected" his grammar. Obviously, the person was pretty much universally wrong. I told Jean, one of the librarians, and she probably then took the time (poor Jean!) to go through and erase them all. At least, I'm pretty sure they were in pencil . . . .

[gzhpcu]

Yes. Yes, I am. I find it at best unlikely that any school--even in the fifties--didn't have a library. I also find it unlikely that any parent interested enough in education to have an Encyclopaedia Britannica in the house would be so down on education as to prevent a child's ever visiting a library. My mom drove us to the downtown library on Sundays, as our local branch wasn't open.

Don't understand why you would think I am not telling the truth? What would be my reason for lying (which is your implication...)?

Because, in my case, it is the truth. And on Sundays we were either on the tennis courts or at the beach all day with friends.

We were not your typical American family. We were Swiss Italian immigrants. My Dad had his own import company for machine tools. Neither were particularly into books, though my Dad once bought the Encyclopedia for me.