I think libraries are great. Or, I like the parts of them that used to
be there when I grew up. But, I don’t get the “new stuff”.
One of the biggest problems with where I currently live is that my
internet connection is terrible. Netflix streaming is something that
either works okay, or is impossible.
I’m used to it, and I kind of accept it, by this point.
I live in the middle of the city, so it’s not a huge problem. I have
amazing internet access at the university. It takes me less than ten
minutes to walk up to the university library, and other university
buildings. And it takes me less than five minutes to walk over to the
public library.
This is what I do. I just walk up to the university, if I have the time.
Or the public library if I don’t. When I need to download something big,
or sync large amounts of data to Dropbox or Evernote.
Which brings me to my main point: what the hell happened to libraries?
The one I have at my university is more or less as you expect it to be.
You have a lot of books, a few people working there; some computers,
some places to sit, toilets , etc.
You have more or less the same at a public library. But, you also have a
lot of stuff that I wouldn’t expect. TV’s, games and recording
equipment.
I can see both sides of it. On one side I don’t see any good reason to
have stuff like that a library. It’s a place for books, and reading —
dammit!
But, there is something interesting on the other side. There are a lot
of good reasons to have stuff for kids to do, to keep them off the
street. They picked the library. They are in a corner, and it doesn’t
bother me that much. It’s a large library.
There is one huge benefit with this, though. A small fraction of the
kids going there to play Playstation, might get the idea to pick up a
book.
Exposing kids, and everyone else in society to books is a good thing.
Books are the reason I started this blog. Books are the reason I’m
studying at the university right now. Books are the reason I managed to
get into IT and software development.
Everything I know came from books; either from reading to learn a skill,
or the skills I got from a lot of reading, and writing. And the reason I
read all the time growing up, and read most days up to this day, was
because of books. My parents always read books, and we had quite a food
books shelves at home.
Books are great!
(#blog)