Aug 27 2008
Are Libraries Becoming Obsolete?
After reading about a funding uproar for a new library on St Helena Island in Beaufort I got to thinking. Are libraries becoming obsolete? There is no denying that we have jumped into the information age with both feet in the water. Everything is computerized now and shared over the Internet. It has given us an infinite amount of resources from all over the world for all kinds of information. Who really needs to go to a library any more other than people who don’t own a computer or have an Internet service? Libraries still serve a purpose, but not the way they used to when I was a kid. I don’t think we’re far enough along to up get rid of them, but is it fiscally conscious for Beaufort County Councilman Bill McBride to demand that $5 million of taxpayer dollars be spent to renovate and expand an existing library in today’s new information age?
Damn, is that the Trinity College Library in Dublin? Looks familiar.
I was doing a campaign once where a fiscally conservative candidate was excoriated for trying to cut the local library’s newspaper budget. This was in Florida, so a lot of the retirees and snowbirds relied on the library for the NYT or some other big northern papers for hometown news.
You just wanna grab them and shake them sometimes and shout: “It’s not my job to buy you a paper! Buy YOUR OWN damn paper or subscribe to the internet!”
But apparently it’s not “fair”, to request such a thing.