Our local library is great (as I’ve mentioned before). They don’t charge late fees, have nice, modern facilities, and are well-funded. They’ve definitely gone more towards the “media center” route, though, with a large offering of CDs and DVDs while devoting less shelf space to books, as is the case around most of the country. With our library, that’s not necessarily a big deal for book-lovers because our county’s system is large and has quite a wide selection of books across the county. If our local branch doesn’t have something, it’s easy to find out if another does and, then, to get it transferred from there to our branch. In fact, even though I wish the library focuses a little more heavily on the books, I’ve found great benefit in getting things from the library that are in my Netflix queue, allowing me to focus on older or more esoteric items from Netflix (never mind that I’m currently getting Mr. Belvedere seasons 1 & 2 from Netflix).
But if I lived in a less populated area with a much smaller library system, I think I would find myself a little bitter that books were becoming less important in the grand library scheme. I’m curious to hear about how other folks’ library systems have been handling this transition from “book lender” to “media center” with a heavier emphasis on non-reading material. (I realize this discussion will need to take place every year or two so we can see how libraries change to cope with non-physical media, ebooks, etc. That’s a good thing, as it means I have a built in Ping topic every year or two.)
I’m kind of old school, but I still get giddy at browsing the shelves at my local library without looking for anything in particular. It’s like going into a bookstore and going on a paid shopping spree, grabbing whatever strikes your fancy off the shelves because everything’s free. FREE BOOKS! FREE MOVIES! FREE MUSIC! AND THEY WON’T ARREST YOU FOR TAKING THEM WITHOUT PAYING!
Posted in Everyday Life, Television, Movies, and Music