The value of libraries

Writes Minou Arjomand in N+1 Magazine:

Amidst millenarian thinking about the death of the book, it’s important to bear in mind that the content of the New York Public Library is not obsolete, nor will it be anytime soon. There are people in all five boroughs who cannot afford to buy books or DVDs, much less laptops or e-readers. According to a national study sponsored by the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation in 2010, 30 million people in the United States used library computers to access the internet last year, and of those, 40 percent did so to find jobs. There are plenty of adults who use the NYPL’s English tutoring and literacy programs, plenty of children whose picture books are checked out from the library. Former NYPL president Paul LeClerc was always careful to emphasize that the public services the library provides are at the center of its mission. Central too are the archival holdings: materials that provide content, not merely ambiance, to scholars.

On a related note, Ariel Dorfman discusses the loss of half his books. "Instead of bewailing the half that had been lost forever, something in me rejoiced at the resurrection of what I had given up for dead."