Popeye
I Don't Exercise
I am a teacher by trade and love my job, but also do a lot of volunteering at local libraries and was an assistant supervisor at one before I landed a good teaching job.
Anyway, a couple of other volunteers and I and the paid staff last week when I went there, started discussing the future of libraries as a whole and will they ever become obsolete or not?
A lot of arguments were thrown around that with how big e-books are becoming(Kindle, Nook) etc and how easy it is to find things on the Internet now(Google,Bing,etc) that people will not have a use for libraries in say 10 years, perhaps even shorter. Or certain states and counties will just shut a lot down to save on the budget(A local county to us shut down a couple branches that's how this discussion got started).
My argument against that was that yes the Internet and Ebooks have really hampered library patronage, but a lot of people still need the library to get expert help from the librarians themselves, workshops such as computer and career help, children's storytime, etc, printing, faxing, and similar as a lot of people cannot do that at home, people cannot afford ebook devices especially if they read a lot, etc etc.
Overall it is tough for me as someone who loves to volunteer in them and am a big advocate for them, to even contemplate the idea that they might become obsolete down the road.
What do ya'll think? Do you think that will eventually happen? How often do you utilize the library yourself? Just curious.
Thank you
Anyway, a couple of other volunteers and I and the paid staff last week when I went there, started discussing the future of libraries as a whole and will they ever become obsolete or not?
A lot of arguments were thrown around that with how big e-books are becoming(Kindle, Nook) etc and how easy it is to find things on the Internet now(Google,Bing,etc) that people will not have a use for libraries in say 10 years, perhaps even shorter. Or certain states and counties will just shut a lot down to save on the budget(A local county to us shut down a couple branches that's how this discussion got started).
My argument against that was that yes the Internet and Ebooks have really hampered library patronage, but a lot of people still need the library to get expert help from the librarians themselves, workshops such as computer and career help, children's storytime, etc, printing, faxing, and similar as a lot of people cannot do that at home, people cannot afford ebook devices especially if they read a lot, etc etc.
Overall it is tough for me as someone who loves to volunteer in them and am a big advocate for them, to even contemplate the idea that they might become obsolete down the road.
What do ya'll think? Do you think that will eventually happen? How often do you utilize the library yourself? Just curious.
Thank you
