A library without books? Not quite, but libraries are evolving. In today’s “media centers,” books aren’t always the first things to come to mind. As students abandon the stacks in favor of online references, university, school, and public libraries are discarding millions of volumes. The nationwide purge has some print-loving scholars deeply unsettled.
Where are the books going? Libraries are storing, selling, or simply recycling books. An increasing number of volumes do continue to exist in the internet cloud, and some libraries are banding together to ensure print copies are retained by someone, somewhere. Still, studious academics argue that large, readily available print collections are vital to research.
It’s not just the intellectual elite who feel this way. One middle school English and Language Arts teacher—who spoke anonymously so as not to endanger his relationship with the school where he teaches—says he is concerned for his young students as fewer books are available for research. Even if the content is online, he says, “Efficiency is gained at the cost of developing our children’s patience, problem solving, and motivation.” Additionally, he says researching through print typically leads to deeper exploration—with imagination-broadening results as one discovery led to another.
He recalls his own library exposure as a youth, saying, “I would slyly escape into a library stack, disappear into a crevice, and read books about inventions, explorers, maps, geology, presidents, UFOs, Bigfoot, sports, careers, natural disasters, anything baseball, all the wars. . . This created scope. You found things to admire, things to appreciate, things to fear, subscribed to new ambitions, dreams, possibilities.”
But times have changed. Digitally stored content—available if you key in the magic search terms—is whittling the research and discovery process down to bare bones, and dusty volumes stay untouched on shelves.
At Indiana University of Pennsylvania, nearly half the print collection has gone uncirculated—not checked out—for 20 years. University administrators called for a major housecleaning. They listed 170,000 books to consider for removal.
Emeritus history professor, Charles Cashdollar, called the reduction “a knife through the heart.”
Experts say reducing unread books has always happened. But the pace is picking up. With the internet handling every possible nonfiction topic through online encyclopedia sites, libraries can fill their shelves with light fiction, trendy dystopian novels, graphic novels, and tie-ins for every pop-culture connection imaginable. Today’s “media centers” look like “a cross between an airport bookstore and a Hot Topic” retail store, scorns the above-referenced teacher.
Libraries defend their choices, saying they must make better use of precious space. Students still flock to the library, librarians claim. They’re just using it in different ways. They come for group study rooms, tutoring centers, and coffee shops.
Once, a library’s value was in the size and breadth of its holdings. Not so much anymore. Now it’s about cultural support.
“We’re kind of like the living room of the campus,” says Oregon State University librarian Cheryl Middleton. “We’re not just a warehouse.”
