GR Magazine discussion

The New York Times reports that, as big stores like Borders disappear, “many public libraries are seeing an opportunity to fill the void created by the loss of traditional bookstores.”

Is that the right direction for libraries to take? What are libraries for, and how should they evolve?

Yes...and teachers! Why are the two so undervalued?

Libraries continue to be valuable for researching especially before about 1995. The Internet/google/yahoo resources are limited in many ways. Libraries fill that gap. Perhaps readers will now use libraries to check out new books before buying them which apparently many do with traditional bookstores. But I believe their primary uses are for: research purposes, meeting place for kids reading groups, and publicizing books in general.

I use my library for research, because I like to have more than one book open at a time when researching a particular idea for my book. I also borrow fiction books, CDs of music and DVDs (used to be videos) of comedy shows (mainly British comedy) and documentaries. Plus, I love to brows shelf after shelf of books to see if one ‘jumps out’ at me - and there isn't any pressure to buy :-o)

Absolutely! Libraries are gathering places, polling/voting sites, and in some less affluent neighborhoods they act as community meeting halls and backup when your internet service is on the fritz. Heck, I can go to my library and find out by looking at all the flyers posted on the bulletin board, what new business are servicing my area. I hope we never get so high techie that we loose such a vital institution as public libraries.

A very interesting story on the future of libraries can be found at NPR.org. One thought from this article is that libraries can become "maker" spaces: a sort of public think-tank/R&D facility for entrepreneurs.