Libraries
There have been many great libraries in my life. As a child the University City Library was one of my favorite destinations in Saint Louis. As an adolescent nothing made me feel more officious than having an excuse to do research at Washington University’s Olin Library. When I was a jaded college student I made cracks about how our college library was a better place to hang out than do research, but it actually served both goals well and I always visit it when I am on campus. As an adult I haven’t spent much time in libraries, which is a result of my not needing to do research, owning more books, doing less reading and getting more information online.
In Seattle we have a public library that is famous both for doing a great job at serving people’s needs and being headquartered in an architecturally stimulating spaceship-like building (go through the whole slideshow if you have the time). I have passed the building hundreds of times, and always admired it and meant to go in. Today I finally made it inside and got a library card. And it is a fantastic library in ever sense. You can borrow everything from books on continental philosophy to copies of Fight Club. The building design is inventive but also very usable. There is a lot of space for people to read and scores of computers. The stacks are an endless spiral of books that you can walk through forever. I want to go back one day when I have more time to wander.
But I don’t need to go back any time soon. The reason that I was in a sudden rush to get my card is that I discover that the library does digital lending of books, music and are about to start providing movies. (Maybe everyone else knew that libraries did this, I didn’t.) In particular, you can access the Safari technical bookshelf, which includes scores of O’Reilly books which make great reference material but tend to be hard to search and become obsolete if you own the print editions (the online version also had books which haven’t been released yet).
The notion that a library can loan materials and not be limited by the lender’s physical proximity to them is interesting, and makes on wonder whether libraries need buildings and books at all. This library could be more like a credit union, acting as a collective to obtain goods and share them effectively among a group of members with some common interest, but not being restricted to a town or neighborhood. Then again, I believe that credit unions stay in business much more due to regulation than due their ability to do a better job at serving customers’ needs. Maybe without a physical community we won’t need libraries at all, and it will be more efficient just to rent books from their publishers, and we can convert the buildings into more general public spaces.
That is one of the most depressing thoughts I have ever had about a world of perfect access to information. Hopefully by the time that happens we’ll have a good virtual reality simulation of wandering through the stacks and smelling old books.