I'VE ALWAYS BEEN A FAN of libraries, but you’ve got to admit that the stature and love of Libraries is seriously bolstered with bullshit. –You know, like most things.
“Books are wonderful.” –Well, no, most of ‘em are shit. Lots of ‘em are indeed wonderful, of course. But let’s not overdo it. Like we always do.
“Libraries are full of wonderful books.” –Well, in my experience, public libraries seem pretty indiscriminate, book-selection-wise (and otherwise). At the local library, seriously shitty or mediocre books sandwich the occasionally excellent ones. Libraries are like the internet or a mall bookstore: point anywhere, and one is more likely to spot chaff than wheat.“Physical books are important. Libraries keep that tradition alive.” –Well, physical books do seem to be important to geezers, but not to most of the kids in college these days. If they read at all, typically they do that on the internet. Increasingly, to them, books are weird.
And most of what they read is crap.
“They’ve proven that FDR caused the Depression.”
“Huh? That’s nonsense. Where’d you read that?”
“It’s on the internet.”
Physical books? You watch. Gizmos like Kindle are gonna replace physical books, and much else, bigime. The writing is on the wall–er, on the iPad. Already, I see students spotting a geezer like me with a book, and they immediately get that look they get when they encounter a Selectric. "WTF?"
For oldsters and semi-oldsters, there’s a romance about books, and it is only enhanced by the tattered, musty, and worn quality of old specimens. One rescues such artifacts and then seeks to sit quietly in a cozy spot to just read, preferably while bespectacled and accompanied by a glass of good booze.
It's a quiet thing. It’s somewhat ritualistic. It’s a fine way of winding down and enjoying oneself, by oneself. And yet it is concordant with thought and the development of wisdom (or self-deception, natch).
Books are great, but I’ve never really understood librarians. They exhibit an odd quietude and they look like refugees from activity-of-any-kind. If they love books, its very hard to see what good that does ‘em. What are these people experts at? I have no idea. The Dewey Decimal System?
How come college libraries are still full of physical books (and VHS tapes)? I don’t get it. Aren’t these things available digitally and online somehow? Nowadays, for better or worse, the younger generation is almost exclusively online. It’s their default position (along with indifference). And books and magazines and references are often now available — you guessed it — online.
Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Plus online connections are cheaper than buying and displaying physical books. Way cheaper.
So what’s with all the goddam books? I say: start selling ‘em. Get ‘em into the hands of fading geezers while they can still read and hold stuff up to their faces. In thirty or forty years, it’ll all be over, like family dinners and attention spans.
There’s a funny piece in yesterday’s New York Times about changes in the ambiance of libraries. Check it out:
Complaint Box: The Lost ‘Library Voice’ (by Sung J. Woo; excerpts)
The library of my youth…was a tomb of peace, where the only sounds were shuffles, whispers and the occasional shush — delivered with an index finger crossing the lips of a bespectacled, cardigan-wearing librarian.
These days, at my local branch…, I have to play an MP3 file in a loop — a sound bite of a hair dryer blasting between my ears — because without the white noise, I would not be able to think straight.
…When did libraries become a cacophonous combination of cafe, video store, music store, computer lab and playground?
Twenty years ago, I was able to research my high school term papers in silence, but now the communal desks have been transformed into an open forum for children and adults to chat away as if they were hanging out at Starbucks.
Back in the day, there was such a thing as your “library voice”…. Not anymore. When fellow patrons walk through the doors and make a beeline for the DVD section, when they are clacking the discs’ plastic cases and lecturing on the savvy beauty of “Mad Men”…, I can hear their every word across the room.
One of the bigger libraries near me has a listening station for CDs, and the other day, two teenage girls sat down, clamped on headphones and proceeded to talk to each other while enjoying their music. Have you ever tried conversing with someone wearing Princess Leia-like headphones? You have to shout. Which is also what kids do when they log on the public computers to watch their favorite YouTube videos while opening up 15 windows of Instant Messenger. They may be quietly typing “LOL,” but they are also literally laughing out loud.
Meanwhile, tykes are burning up the carpet. I cannot remember the last time I went to my library when children were not playing hide-and-seek in the stacks, shrieking as they chased one another. The parents are usually nowhere to be seen, maybe playing a little hide-and-seek from their offspring. If this were story hour, I could understand, but it seems as if every minute of every day is now playtime.
Even librarians seem to be getting into the act, talking on the telephone as if sitting in a living room, letting everyone know that the plumber is arriving during lunch…. At one point I had to turn up the dial of my hair dryer symphony to 11 because two librarians were discussing the location of a particular audio book — while standing at the opposite ends of the room….
We oldsters need to face reality. "The book is dead; long live the book." We’ve got to face the music and get with the program.
On the other hand, in some ways, the new program stinks. There was something very good about physical books and the way we were with 'em. And there’s something bad about kids (or anybody) staring at a computer screen all day, comfortable with flash and ephemera and uncomfortable with thought or the notion that one is responsible for helping to fix the world. (Have you noticed that displays of torture are now simply a form of entertainment? God, we're idiots.)
You see, the fundamental wisdom of conservatism is this: we have a way of being and doing, and we know that some of that “way” is good and valuable — and easily lost.
So we should try carefully to preserve it. We shouldn’t let the entire younger generation run like hell after baubles and prodigies of unknown merit. Who knows what gems will be lost and what folly created?
Go forward, into the future. But slowly, carefully.
But no. We are morons.
The Kinks (1963 - )
We are the Village Green Preservation Society
God save Donald Duck, Vaudeville and variety
We are the Desperate Dan appreciation society
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do?
We are the draught beer preservation society
God save Mrs. Mopp and good old Mother Riley
We are the custard pie appreciation consortium
God save the George Cross and all those who were awarded them
We are the Sherlock Holmes english speaking vernacular
Help save Fu Manchu, Moriarty and Dracula
We are the office block persecution affinity
God save little shops, china cups and virginity
We are the skyscraper condemnation affiliate
God save Tudor houses, antique tables and billiards
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do?
God save the village green....
The Modern Lovers (1970-1973)
My telephone never rings
She'd never call me
I hate myself today
But I can see through this bitterness and sadness
And so I won't die
Someday I think I'll be dignified and old
Well my friends say that I deceive myself
And that I contradict myself
And I can't say if they're right
But I'm not ashamed
Oh I can take a challenge
And so I won't die
Someday I'll be dignified and old
I know it
And I say hey kids (Hey kids)
I said hey kids (Hey kids)
I say someday we'll be dignified and old
That's right
I said some day we'll be dignified (Hey kids, Hey kids)
Someday we'll be dignified (Hey kids, Hey kids)
Someday we could be dignified and old together
Well now
Look at the mountain
My girl and I used to stand on the mountain
And the sun shines, she's dead, and I cry
But I can see through this death and the sadness
And so I won't die now
Someday I wanna be dignified and old
Well now, see the desert
I sit all alone in the desert
And no girl understands me
But I can see through this bleakness and grey and sadness
And well I won't die now
Someday I'll be dignified and old
I say, you, don't die now
Someday we'll be dignified and old together
20 comments:
Very good. ES
Why so terse, ES? Spill your guts!
Not terse, just tired. You're lucky you got anything! ES
I consider myself very fortunate.
Smarty. I'm going to take a nap. Worn out from going to the beach so much with the kids this week.(Life is hard.) Today is cold so I get a break. ES
"It's a quiet thing. It’s somewhat ritualistic. It’s a fine way of winding down and enjoying oneself, by oneself. And yet it is concordant with thought and the development of wisdom "
This is some seriously good writing, BvT--the whole piece.
The topic is dear to my heart and important--but probably only to geezers. But we're *right* to care so much. There are 3 separate things here to worry about (amongst dozens): the loss of silent places (love that piece you excerpted about the changes in libraries); the loss, potentially and perhaps inevitably, of libraries (true: they are wildly uneven, depending on the intelligence and breadth of the librarians); and the loss of books, which it fills my soul with pain to contemplate. (Even the *smell* of books is something I love--perhaps weirdly--especially old ones.)
Who knows what differences in moral psychology and general outlook are effected simply by NOT having books to curl up with in quiet places?----No one yet knows, but it is something we should at least worry about, dammit.
Gad; who knew the lyrics to that Kinks song?--way cool.
Okay; having established my definitive "geezer" status in all possible ways, I'm off--to read a book--or a (paper-type) newspaper!
So there.
MAH
"Top of the world, MAH!" --BvT
"There was something very good about physical books and the way we were with 'em. And there’s something bad about kids (or anybody) staring at a computer screen all day, comfortable with flash and ephemera and uncomfortable with thought or the notion that one is responsible for helping to fix the world."
I couldn't agree more; I believe that the loss of books, if that is the future of reading, means that no more will young readers, such as we were, have the singular joy of the tactile feel of carrying around a favorite, waiting for the lovely quiet time in which we would sit and become immersed in a story. I just don't see it happening with a computer screen.
Sure, the words are there, but what of the gentle turning of a page, or leafing back to a chapter and re-reading a bit of information and then returning to perhaps a dog eared marker where we continue? There is an intimacy that would be profoundly lacking.
I don't see someone cuddling up on the end of the couch with a computer screen, even a handheld version, having the same experience.
I'm also troubled by the nature of the computer--it beckons to those who are easily bored, with all the bells and whistles, so if a demanding passage appears, then voila, off to another more "fun" location. So much for immersing oneself in something demanding, that takes a little time and effort to become engaged.
I believe that the current obsession of communications with text messaging and continual cell phone conversations about inane personal details of one's own little trivia has unleashed a narcissistic tidal wave (OMG LOL! I bought a shirt! OMG!) that will be the death knell of actual serious conversation and thought, except for the very few who will find themselves drwoning in a sea of mediocrity.
This is not just the age old issue of "what the kids are doing today." This is a massive, sea change, in the quality of life and it's not good at all.
It's hard to tease out exactly what causes what here. I think that the new technologies are wonderful, but, as usual, we embrace them as though consumerism were a religion that promises eternal life.
I don't see why one couldn't develop a "way" with iPads that is similar to the way that now seems threatened. And I think that will happen for some. In the meantime, though, the masses--typically the youth--will chase after the immediately gratifying and "cool," whatever its merits and consequences.
I do wonder if it is true that "attention spans" are shorter (they certainly seem to be) and that this results to a significant degree from internet communication (a reasonable hypothesis). If so, letting kids "have at it" was the worst thing we could have done. (Do let's be careful about these causal hypotheses.)
The villain here is not the technology. It is the utter lack of wisdom of adults and the rejection of "community" by progressives. Why do parents join in this massive experiment? (But, of course, they don't see it that way.) Those who believe in community tend also to be Neanderthals, who imagine that we need to put a stop to the display of breasts on TV while junior plays with his new Remington in the backyard. God what morons.
We need smart people who are willing to embrace community and to lead.
I think that the villain is the technology. It has allowed the easy absorption of always entertaining and available pap, which of course is what draws the average mind. Sort of like corn syrup in food, in which it almost becomes the food.
There's a great little article comparing e-readers (the ipad vs. others) in yesterday's LA Times--I think in the Calendar section. It's strikingly relevant to our discussion: e.g., they comment on how the ipad preserves the sense of the physical book--its look and even (in some sense) its sensations of turning pages, the book having a beginning/middle/end, and so on. I was impressed! Sorry that I am so technologically incompetent that I don't know how to provide the link here.
MAH
The Times article:
iPad's book-like touches may appeal to traditional readers
I did read that article and appreciate the attempt, but it's still not a book, goldarnit!
Listen, these iPads (and the like) will be great. You'll be able to sit in that same corner with that same brandy--only you'll have access to just about anything and everything anybody's ever written. No doubt somebody will create a program to make the pages look shitty and old and maybe even stinky too--and then Voila. I don't see the problem. The real problem here is this younger generation that doesn't read books. Whether books are hardbound, softbound, or virtual is immaterial cuz they ain't havin' any of it! They zoom around from thing to thing all day and read pieces, fragments. And that's all they do. This is too bold an experiment, if you ask me. But in the meantime, I'm gonna keep reading my books in the old way, only I'll likely get an iPad or something like it down the line and thus upgrade the old ways with a new gizmo. There's a gain and a loss and, who knows, maybe there's more of a gain. Probably so. We all know (or know about) writers who still use typewriters (or less!). There is something special about constructing one's writing with such slowness, wrestling with a simple mechanical device that causes one to stop and fix flubs or untangle the hammers now and again. It's different, now that writing is a smoother, faster process, without paper and tapping little metal hammers. And it will be different again when we finally cross over to voice-writing. But the imagination persuades us that though something is lost surely something will also be gained. Go with a little adventure, I say. These little adventures leave the original activity whole, more or less. Only different.
Thanks for the link, 11:45--and thanks, 2:34, for your excellent perspective about "something gained"--and maybe more than we can predict. It is also a substantial comfort to remember that we can sit in the same corner with the same drink!
A colleague of mine is teaching a course called "Slow Writing;" they will use only pen and paper. I think it's a great idea--will give students a perspective not many in their generation will ever attain.
I remember getting my very own Selectric, a hundred years ago. I couldn't believe its outrageous speed and efficiency. Unfortunately, through the paper-thin ceiling of the grad student apartment below, it sounded like "a herd of elephants." That poor neighbor!
Back in the olden days....
MAH
Well. I so agree about our moronitude, but... having deeply loved some books by B. Traven, I'm going all verklempt and need to go ponder.
Well, these electronic books are probably inevitable, and it seems they're going to be probably ok, but they will never be books. They are pieces of plastic that will have pages superimposed on them. You won't be able to leaf through the pages or bend half of it back to make sitting and reading more comfortable if you need to. I do fear that we now have a generation that won't be reading much anyways, as you say, and that will be a profound loss for them. (Of course, they won't even have a sense as to such loss.) They'll be too busy texting about how their pants are riding up.
On the "demise of bookish culture" I recommend Ivan Illich's In the Vineyard of the Text: A Commentary on the Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor. I don't think you need to be familiar with the Didascalicon to read it (though it wouldn't hurt, and it's an especially lovely read for educators, from the time Illich dates as the "dawn" of bookish culture).
Alannah, sounds good. BvT
I found this post via Hattie's Web. Though it seems that all information is online, much of it isn't. My local library has microfilmed newspapers that are not in any digital format. Yes, the quality of library collections vary, but in general, libraries do a good job of stocking relevant material for their patrons.
I also don't think the printed book is obsolescent.
--Brandon
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