Have I Ever Mentioned I Think It's Silly When People Call Bookstores Libraries' Competitors?
Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value.
Transcript of a lengthy, meaty speech by Philip Pullman. The whole thing is worth a read, but I especially like his conclusion:
I love the public library service for what it did for me as a child and as a student and as an adult. I love it because its presence in a town or a city reminds us that there are things above profit, things that profit knows nothing about, things that have the power to baffle the greedy ghost of market fundamentalism, things that stand for civic decency and public respect for imagination and knowledge and the value of simple delight.
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Oh, and I've updated the previous post to include a few additional comments that were added to the discussion. It seems to have a rather perfect conclusion now, too.
posted by Degolar @ 12:01 PM
2 Comments:
When we were in a couple of very small towns in Iowa last summer - population about 1,000 and less - I was amazed to see that both had a public library. Industries and businesses had closed, but the libraries were there. One was a small basement room only open a couple of days a week for a few hours, the other, larger, open enough for a full time job with storytimes at 4:00 pm two days a week and Mockingjay on the shelf. It said a lot to me about community and what people value. Things we take for granted.
i bought a nook because i am a big fan of technology and books, and so far, i've paid for one book. the rest have been through the library.
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