Bookless libraries

[SFG75]

Yep, it's coming.

Is this the end of the world as we know it?

Same reading, different platform....with angry birds on the side?

sparkchaser challenging anyone under the age of 20 to a game of checkers?

Many puzzling aspects to this.

 

[kelstan]

Honestly, I have not visited my local library in over a year, mostly because of a lack of time to do so. They are only open 9am - 6pm, with one evening extended to 8pm and 9am to 1pm on Saturday, so it's really tough for working people to visit; however, I use their website pretty much every week to download books.

 

[SFG75]

Funding is definitely an issue. Many libraries cut back on their hours and can't seem to justify to city boards that they deserve money, or at least, more money than meager amounts they were given previously.:sad:I hear you about the "time" factor. It's much easier to use your kindle to download books when the library is closed or to make time with an already full day. Can't wait until retirement. Oh wait, in America, Social Security won't be around when I retire!:lol:

 

[Manly Reviews]

Funding is an issue so we spend several hundred thousand dollars on computers + the cost of licensing the electronic formats of the books from the publishers? Not buying it.

That being said - I'm kind of excited about it. It may be sad that fewer kids will know what its like to highlight pages, underline, note in columns and things of that sort - but they'll at least be reading. Which is good.

How many people can't drive a stick anymore?

Change like this isn't always bad.

 

[Blindsided]

I'm not going to lie, I've had the kindle since the first version came out, I have read maybe 3-5 books on it, but I still love paper books so much more. Nothing like looking over and seeing your book shelf, my opinion of course.

 

[Eva]

Books are expensive to maintain in the library setting. Secretly, librarians have been dreaming about the paperless library since long before I was born, let alone before I became a librarian myself.

Electronic information sources will never be totally intuitive--ever--so actual humans will still be needed to guide readers to what they need. Don't believe me? We librarians know that people even need help using the time-tested information technology known as books. In other words, librarians will still have jobs.

I, of course, love books and collect them, but I don't need to impose that preference on libraries as they try to serve the public in new, improved ways.

And by the way, NPR itself recently did away with its library, replacing books and magazines almost title-by-title with electronic equivalents.

 

[Conscious Bob]

Books are expensive to maintain in the library setting. Secretly, librarians have been dreaming about the paperless library since long before I was born, let alone before I became a librarian myself.

Was that what you put down on your application when you applied for the job?