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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Libraries to become extinct

No star here laces

23:47 / 02.05.04

- mods feel free to move, dunno where this goes...

According to the Economist this weekend, public libraries in the UK will be extinct by 2015 (if not earlier) as lending falls through the floor.

Basically this is due to the continual decline in the price of a book relative to average incomes, so while the amount of reading people are doing is rising (as far as we can tell) the numbers using libraries are falling as most people prefer to buy books.

Despite the fact that I myself haven't used a library in years, this makes me very sad, as the library was my absolute number one favourite place as a kid.

I know we got some librarians on the board - whatchall think of this?

00:13 / 03.05.04

Well, *ahem*, *cracks knuckles*... I suppose I count as a librarian, as I do happen to work in one, albeit a little dinky one that won't carry GNs no matter how much I... Er... Anyway.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Over here in Pennsylvania the gov't has cut the funding in half, so we're scrambling to stay afloat. I'd be surprised if the place survives another three or four years.

So, the death of libraries is going to be trouble, or something. Hell if I know. I just work at one.

09:19 / 03.05.04

I think libraries won't dissapear entirely...there will always be a need for some place to have reference texts available, if only in a university setting. Maybe the number of libraries will decline, but I hope that some will be kept afloat through private endowments or suchlike.

Alternatively, we might see libraries moving to the developing nations where the social and economic conditions are similar to what they were in Europe when libraries really took off at the start of the 20th century. Either way, I don't think libraries are going to vanish entirely...

12:02 / 03.05.04

Flowers started a thread about this a while ago, which is very interesting.