ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
|
 Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:46 pm Post subject: The Modern Library |
 |
|
What do you think about the "library" and its future?
I have always believed in the library as "the headquarters of civilization", as Gyorgy Faludy once quipped. A place where we learn to concentrate and form a relationship with the world at large, with ourselves through script. A place where we form that inner dialogue with ourselves and begin the process of becoming critical and involved thinkers.......
But lately the library has changed. Here below is one opinion of that change. I agree with her and laud how libraries have become only cheap video stores and cheap internet cafes. there must be a middle way, me thinks. One of the greatest things about America and Canada, in comparison to the rest of the world, has always been their libraries. We'd do well to protect that great asset.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-miller10apr10,0,3015857.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
| Quote: |
'Shhh' -- the one thing you won't hear in a library
Sure, times have changed, but can't people shut off their cellphones and quiet down for a little while?
By Sarah Miller, SARAH MILLER, the author of "Inside the Mind of Gideon Rayburn," lives in Mount Washington.
April 10, 2007
SOMETIME IN the '80s, I sat at a table in the town library in Lenox, Mass., doing my eighth-grade algebra homework. A man, probably about the age I am now, appeared in front of me. He wore a short-sleeved dress shirt and knit tie, both of unfortunate shades and textures no longer in active circulation, as well as a look of perturbation. "Excuse me," he said. "That pencil is making an awful lot of noise." I apologized. I may have even blushed with shame. I put a legal pad under my homework, and he returned to his task, frowning over a worn set of local census tables. I caught his eye, and he nodded to indicate that now, indeed, we had achieved that blessed thing called perfect silence. |
and she ends...
| Quote: |
Libraries are more vibrant these days, and busier, Persic says, and I applaud this. But just because libraries serve a broader function than they once did shouldn't mean that people lose all respect for what they began as: a place where silence is, if not always pristine, actively sought.
In a conversation discussing the tension between the library of yore and the library of now, Fjeldsted points out to me that libraries are "less elitist" than they were when I was young. Does this mean libraries used to be full of rich, smart, quiet people, but now they're full of poor, dumb, loud ones? Call me a snob, call me old-fashioned, but I think there should be one institution where, on entering, people are forced � horror of horrors � to be quiet. For once. |
DD |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
