Quoting Tim Spalding <tim_at_LIBRARYTHING.COM>:
>
> In short, librarians are fond of saying there is "more to a library
> than books." It's worth discussing the more, and thinking about
> whether it will change over time. I for one am not at all convinced
> that the historically rather brief practice of free computers in
> libraries will continue forever.
>
Depends on what you mean by "free computers." There was a time when
public libraries had rooms with typewriters, for folks who didn't have
one at home. Then there were computers with word-processing programs
for those without computers at home. At my local public library, I've
never seen a computer "unused", and usually there is a line waiting to
get to them. In this case, though, it appears that most people are
using the computers for internet access. Internet access in a library
makes good sense -- it's another information resource, after all. Not
only that, some of the library's own resources are only available over
the internet (journal databases, etc.) So I think that internet access
belongs there, and will continue to be there as long as the internet
is a key information resource. Whether or not that means that the
library has to provide computers is another thing, but even when
"everybody" has a laptop, the public library will need to serve that 5
or 10 or 20% of our population that seems to be always left out of
"everybody."
kc
--
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
Received on Fri Apr 30 2010 - 09:47:13 EDT