Make a run from the Borders
Oct. 19th, 2007 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfieldI may have ranted about this before, but it deserves another spotlight: why don't people appreciate public libraries? This is a place where you can walk in, grab whatever you want and take it home, and all the folks there will do is say "please return it in two weeks." The only requirement is that you wear a shirt. No credit card, collateral or convincing necessary. Where else on earth is such a thing possible? I have friends who are less accomodating than this. And yet, these libraries are practically barren, occupied only by unnaturalized immigrants, 13-year olds and me.
Meanwhile, effete bourgeois latte-sippers loiter in the aisles of Borders and Barnes and Noble, deciding which book will look best on their shelves -- this one, for $18.99, or that one, for $24.99. This is a common testimonial to the bookstore: that it allows you to keep the book, so you don't have to return it. This is a ridiculously dumb argument. First of all, once you've read it, what do you still need it for? Just in case you need to cite "Who Moved My Cheese" in a future research paper? No, it's because people want to display the books prominently in the common areas of their homes, like intellectualist trophies for people who miss the "I Completed Charlotte's Web" certificates they handed out in fourth grade. "But what if I want to read it again?" they ask. Then borrow it again, dummy.
When I bring this up I also hear complaints that library inventories are woefully out of date or sterilized for mass public consumption. In some cases, this may be true. But the other night, I could have checked out with Barack Obama's recent tome "The Audacity of Hope," Elliot Smith's posthumous final CD "From a Basement on the Hill" and the DVD of 2005's "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," which by the way has enough gratuitous violence, obvious nudity and frank depictions of alternative lifestyles to satisfy even the most prurient viewer.
I don't know, maybe my generation has been soured on libraries by our time spent in universities, being condescended to by work-study elitists, falling asleep at oak tables and trying to avoid rogue masturbators in the stacks. (Incidentally, how long before we start seeing rogue masturbators in Borders? Bookstores, unlike libraries, actually have pornography.) Perhaps the idea of libraries is a passé remnant of an era that embraced the notion of extended families, understood that any locality has a vested interest in the edification and culturalization of its citizens, and appreciated the warmer tenets of collectivism and communism. Perhaps today's culture -- or, more to the point, marketplace -- has demonstrated that bloated Americans will enthusiastically pay for things that they can easily get for free (See also: water, bottled.)
Some day, perhaps soon, libraries are going to start closing their doors due to lack of funding, or interest, or both. That's going to be a sad day -- for me, at least.
Meanwhile, effete bourgeois latte-sippers loiter in the aisles of Borders and Barnes and Noble, deciding which book will look best on their shelves -- this one, for $18.99, or that one, for $24.99. This is a common testimonial to the bookstore: that it allows you to keep the book, so you don't have to return it. This is a ridiculously dumb argument. First of all, once you've read it, what do you still need it for? Just in case you need to cite "Who Moved My Cheese" in a future research paper? No, it's because people want to display the books prominently in the common areas of their homes, like intellectualist trophies for people who miss the "I Completed Charlotte's Web" certificates they handed out in fourth grade. "But what if I want to read it again?" they ask. Then borrow it again, dummy.
When I bring this up I also hear complaints that library inventories are woefully out of date or sterilized for mass public consumption. In some cases, this may be true. But the other night, I could have checked out with Barack Obama's recent tome "The Audacity of Hope," Elliot Smith's posthumous final CD "From a Basement on the Hill" and the DVD of 2005's "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," which by the way has enough gratuitous violence, obvious nudity and frank depictions of alternative lifestyles to satisfy even the most prurient viewer.
I don't know, maybe my generation has been soured on libraries by our time spent in universities, being condescended to by work-study elitists, falling asleep at oak tables and trying to avoid rogue masturbators in the stacks. (Incidentally, how long before we start seeing rogue masturbators in Borders? Bookstores, unlike libraries, actually have pornography.) Perhaps the idea of libraries is a passé remnant of an era that embraced the notion of extended families, understood that any locality has a vested interest in the edification and culturalization of its citizens, and appreciated the warmer tenets of collectivism and communism. Perhaps today's culture -- or, more to the point, marketplace -- has demonstrated that bloated Americans will enthusiastically pay for things that they can easily get for free (See also: water, bottled.)
Some day, perhaps soon, libraries are going to start closing their doors due to lack of funding, or interest, or both. That's going to be a sad day -- for me, at least.
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Many leather-bound volumes ...
Date: 2007-10-20 04:48 am (UTC)(Also, as a condescending work-study elitist, allow me to point out that the UR library did, in fact, have Playboy. On microfilm.)
I love libraries...
Date: 2007-10-21 05:36 am (UTC)I'm not sure why wealthier people don't use libraries as much--and I think your explanation is as feasible as any other I've heard--but I disagree that libraries are empty or in danger of disappearing. In every city I have ever lived, my brach libraries have been used by all kinds of regular people. And in Seattle, the newly designed main downtown library is packed every day. I walk across the street to it several times a week.
When I find a book I love at the library, I sometimes by it for my collection at a book store. It's an added benefit, I guess, that people can look at it on my book shelves to see what kinds of books I like, but I actually keep them because I like to be able to read them whenever I want, trade them with family members and friends and refer to them as needed. I also go to book stores to buy presents for kids for birthdays, etc. It's one of the few types of consumerism I think is okay.
Long live libraries ... and book stores.
Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-10-21 10:26 pm (UTC)Re: Many leather-bound volumes ...
Date: 2007-10-21 10:35 pm (UTC)- 62 belong to J.
- 29 were gifts...
- 5 were stolen...
- 55 were purchased by me... Of these 55:
* 14 were purchased from e-bay or book, yard or garage sales
* 10 were purchased for
* 6 are reference books
That leaves 25 books that I must have purchased at a bookstore or through a similar online vendor. I estimate at least half of them were purchased with coupons and/or gift cards.
Don't get me started on my CD/DVD collection, though. I am sadly guilty of hypocrisy regarding those piles of raw commercialism.
Re: Many leather-bound volumes ...
Date: 2007-10-21 10:36 pm (UTC)- 62 belong to J.
- 29 were gifts...
- 5 were stolen...
- 55 were purchased by me... Of these 55:
* 14 were purchased from e-bay or book, yard or garage sales
* 10 were purchased for school purposes
* 6 are reference books
That leaves 25 books that I must have purchased at a bookstore or through a similar online vendor. I estimate at least half of them were purchased with coupons and/or gift cards.
Don't get me started on my CD/DVD collection, though. I am sadly guilty of hypocrisy regarding those piles of raw commercialism.
Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-10-22 07:20 pm (UTC)- Josh
Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-10-23 02:12 pm (UTC)Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-10-23 03:26 pm (UTC)Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-10-29 06:48 am (UTC)Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-10-29 01:23 pm (UTC)Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-10-29 06:56 pm (UTC)Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-11-01 04:11 pm (UTC)How can anyone say it's a great gift shop?
Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-11-06 09:36 pm (UTC)Re: I love libraries...
Date: 2007-11-27 04:15 am (UTC)