Thoughts on Digital Media and Advocating for Libraries

I realize we live in the digital age and with the ebook readers being the hot new item and digital media being so much cheaper to produce, we can expect this trend to continue.  My experience looking at ebooks though, make me glad I lived in an age with libraries filled with books, not just computers.  Recently, I had to look at the Interntational Wildlife Encyclopedia for an evaluation of reference sources.  These books made me want to keep looking at the pictures of other animals and scanning some of the information.  Yes, you can do that on the computer too, but what is more satisfying?  I know I would not have kept looking at more and more entries on the computer, but found myself flipping more and more pages.  I bet if you asked a military member if they would rather speak with their family in person or skyping, you would get a pretty good consensus of which is more preferable.

Advocating for Libraries—Professor Jesseman shared an article--

http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/save-oxfordshire-libraries-speech-philip-pullman.  The author espoused his belief that libraries do not need to prove their worth.  I came away from the article with an impression that he had a holier-than-thou attitude that libraries should not have to worry about their budgets, it was the job of the politicians to find enough money to support them fully.  He bemoaned the idea that some libraries would close.  I actually thought, it would be best if they closed all the libraries.  By selectively closing just a few, the others would simply become more heavily used and some of those people who could not access the other libraries would simply be forgotten.  By closing them all, people who realize sooner how valuable the asset really is to their communities.  After all, that is how public schools and libraries first came into existence.  People realized that was the difference for them, keeping them from being able to advance themselves.  They wanted better for their children and were willing to pay for it.  As the song goes, "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone!"