samedi 24 mars 2018

Online Library San Diego Can They Replace Traditional Libraries?

By Scott Mitchell


I can't even list all of the different activities we saw going on at the archive. We visited the map room, the reading rooms, the microfiche room, and the children's section. Have a look at the following article taking us through the theme Reflections on the public Library San Diego.

We stepped over art students making sketches of the building interior; we breezed through one of the two brilliant exhibitions curated by the archive's staff, we tip-toed through the archive's rooms for research fellows. Each of these places was full of human beings, doing-I doesn't know what. Perhaps one of them was there to look online for a job, and maybe one was researching a story from their family history.

What does it mean to honor libraries? I don't need to reinvent the wheel here; there are quotes carved into the wall all over the archive. To honor libraries is to accept democracy. It is to honor the equality of citizens-to respect and indeed create a meritocracy. It is to acknowledge the role of knowledge in society. It is to accept human potential.

They are the ultimate expression of people defining and meeting their own needs. New York Public Archive was built with private money, and it is primarily maintained with private funds, as are many libraries in this country. Team Maria's Libraries has had the conversation about private donations many times, including doing a two-month research project on it this summer.

There is no doubt that online libraries, which have vast collections of traditional books, literature, novels, educational textbooks, tutorial books, children's books, guide references and many more, exist to help; and help the youth, it does. Reading should not be exclusive to people who can afford to buy books. Settling with what the local public archive has, should not be the only alternative for those who can't afford to buy new books.

Learning is for everyone, and we all have the right to get educated. Quality and updated books and references should be made accessible to people from all walks of life. Online libraries are bringing about this democratization by making it more convenient for people to access books and references. College students can now quickly search for specific textbooks and are given the option to rent them. Now, the question of whether online libraries can replace traditional libraries has been brought up by debating parties on opposite sides.

Of course, the NYPL has not abandoned the book. But this story does give rise to an interesting problem that libraries face. Although the archive is a public institution, people's relationship with it is intensely personal. The archive is thus in a tricky place, it has to both continually innovate to be at the cutting edge, but it is also the vanguard of our shared culture, which can spill over into nostalgia.

We have yet to identify our local patron (if anyone reading this is the Brooke Astor of Western Kenya, email me!), and determining what is needed in the full archive collection is not even on the table yet. This process is slow and sometimes feels like a series of hurdles. And this it will continue to be, for as long as the archive is around.




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