Many decades ago there was a tiny library in Highgate, North London, where I lived. I don’t know how many books it had in it, but not a huge amount. This probably didn’t matter because nobody ever visited it.
Understandably, the local Council put out the message that it, along with a few others, would be closed down.
Naturally, the news of this pending closure motivated all the local loonies, alongside loonies from further afield. Suddenly they were outside the library they never used with their banners and placards and shouty voices screaming at everybody driving by. The library that nobody used must be saved.
This library saving was back in the days well before the internet or any form of modern technology. Those were the days when if you did want to research anything, you had to find a relevant book and read the author’s thoughts on the subject. Then maybe find a supplementary book and read that author’s views. No wonder we were so ignorant and easy fodder for whoever’s books were the ‘mainstream’.
Last week, I decided to spend time looking at Liverpool‘s brand new Central Library. Ok, it was raining and I had time to kill.
The building recently cost about £ 60 Million to renovate, and it struck me as a very nice building. I loved how the modern style interconnected with oldie worldie styles.
But, it was full of lots and lots of space. So much space.
And in a number of places, there were books. There was far more space than books, and also there seemed to be computers and microfiche readers and photocopiers, and of course, the obligatory Costa coffee shop. Why is Costa coffee always associated with books anyway?
There were mysterious rooms with really really old books kept in controlled climate under lock and key (apparently it took three months to get all these rarities back from special storage into this slightly in view storage), and mysterious rooms with really really old architecture.
All very nice, but what’s the point?
Surely libraries are redundant? We no longer need libraries. They are over-expensive, pointless and unnecessary places.
All modern literature is available electronically, and material from before the ‘digital age’ could easily be transferred to electronic form. A lot of it already has. Heck, even the microfiche stuff can be digitised.
The Liverpool Central Library makes play of the fact that it stores some extremely rare manuscripts and original hand-written works.
Hello?
These should not be in a library! These should be in a museum. And the contents should be scanned for anybody to enjoy electronically without any fear of the degradation of the original.
Libraries ceased to have a purpose once the internet was designed. As internet technology has enhanced itself, so too have we completely eradicated any excuse for keeping physical libraries.
Imagine what Liverpool could have more properly spent that £ 60 Million on!
Libraries are not good for the environment. They are certainly wasteful and not in the slightest bit ‘green’. They are a hark back to an era we have moved on from.
All libraries need to be closed and the buildings used for something far more useful.
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