(Reprinted from Sharing with Writers, an e-newsletter edited by Carolyn Howard-Johnson)
After my last rant on publishers running amuck I find this information on how libraries might be hurting readers and writers alike!
Time reports that the director of the library system in Fairfax County, VA., is presiding over the destruction of books including classics like For Whom the Bell Tolls and To Kill a Mockingbird. Time magazine (January 15, 2007) reports that they will destroy any book not checked in the last two years.
The director is quoted as saying "We're being very ruthless. A book is not forever."
I beg to differ. Putting aside exigencies like mold and fire, a book is forever. The piece in my last newsletter about the palimpsest from which our scientists are struggling to retrieve the remains of some of Archimedes's work puts the lie to that remark about as well as anything.
But more than that, what has happened to our idea of libraries? Aren't they repositories of a culture. A place where people can go to find To Kill a Mockingbird when the spirit moves them or when someone (Praise be!) chooses to talk to our young people again about tolerance. Or when . . . .well, you get the idea.
What about the concept of free press and free speech? What about the idea that ideas of all kinds should be available to our populace not just the popular ones. Who gets to judge what is popular anyway. We measure that with the number of times a book has been checked our or its political slant? I don't think we can trust that popular necessarily equates with quality or needed.
I'm really, really ticked off at this one. Of course all libraries can't keep every book that ever decked its stacks. Economics are a consideration. But I believe that we hire good librarians (and good directors) to make decent choices for the good of the community and it seems to me that this particular director got it wrong somewhere along the way.
I also believe that we get the kind of government (and libraries) we deserve. It looks as if we are all doomed.
Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
HoJoNews@aol.com
http://carolynhoward-johnson.com
http://authorscoalitionandredenginepess.com and a blog focused on book fairs at
http://redenginepress.com/chjohnson and another blog that is just about writing and reading at www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
4 comments:
Thank you for commenting on posts at #SharingwithWriters blog, a Writers Digest 101 Best Websites pick at
www.SharingWithWriters.blogspot.com. You might also find www.TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com full of resources you can use and
www.TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a free review site will benefit your book or increase your reading pleasure.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good one about the librarian. Geeze, you can hire a kid to go through and throw out books by some arbitrary date. What's the point of a Master's Degree (or better) for librarians, if he isn't going to use his knowledge to thin the stacks?
ReplyDeleteGood rant, Carolyn.
Wait a minute...destroy them? Whatever happened to donating them to a needy cause or something? I don't know, Carolyn...I think this is cause to become quite alarmed. BTW, I didn't even know you had a blog! I'm going to blogroll you, okay?
ReplyDeleteCarolyn
ReplyDeleteI think we all should be alarmed. Those books could have been sold to the public or even given away. I don't think destroying books is what a library is about.
Add to that the fact that here in Oregon they are closing all of the libraries in Jackson County for lack of timber dollars, and the libraries in Josephine County will soon follow for the same reason. I find this very disturbing. Many people have the mistaken impression that libraries are unnecessary because all books are available for anyone to read on the Internet. Where did that idea come from?