“Libraries are our friends” said famed writer Neil Gaiman. Katharine Hepburn once asked “what in the world would we do without our libraries?” When last polled about a decade ago in 2011, Toronto was home to ninety-eight public libraries and two book mobiles; with approximately thirty thousand programs hours and more than 19 million in person visits.
Despite the seeming popularity of the time honored library, there have been very legitimate concerns about the decline of the library in our digitized world. The cynical pronouncement from the Annoyed Librarian blogger is that no one will even notice as libraries vanish because people will be “too busy renting ebooks from Amazon”.
Is there a future for Libraries?
Books are being replaced with ebooks and the other popular resource, DVDs, are also rapidly being replaced by online movie providers. Publishing companies are not easily persuaded to turn over ebooks (as Libraries offer their use for free, and it’s easier to control the distribution of e-resources than print media which can be obtained anywhere), so although Libraries attempt to acquire as many ebooks as possible, this isn’t always easy.
Other sources argue that if people believe the internet is making libraries obsolete, it’s because they haven’t been in a library recently.
The reality is that libraries, like so many public institutions, have adapted to new digitized world.
Book circulation may have declined, but the Library now offers a wider diversity of services. Libraries offer free wi-fi, public computers for personal use, an assortment of programs for all age groups, Library accounts accessible online, and even offer services such as income tax filing assistance and computer classes for seniors. For the Silo, Charity Blaine.
