Library Stuff

Marietta Daily Journal – “Public safety begins with our teens who we can either educate and give opportunities to or deal with out on the streets. The same is true for the unemployed and homeless friends, neighbors and former co-workers who have touched every one of us. They need the libraries now more than they ever did. If we close libraries, we are shutting the doors on the people who need us most – a very real threat to public safety – as economic desperation often leads to crime and public unrest.”

Quadrant Online – “When I was an undergraduate my tutor used to look through the lecture list to see what was worth attending. “Oh, no, he’s no good. Oh, no, you wouldn’t get much out of that. No, I don’t think you’d want to waste time there,” he would say, adding, “I think you’d best just go along to the library.” For years I felt that, awful as they have become, universities still provided a base for literature, history, knowledge. Continuities were transmitted. History was preserved. Even when the teaching faltered the library was there. The books provided their own record. And now they are being thrown out. The destruction of libraries currently under way marks a new era of thought control. It is a widespread phenomenon in the developed world, and Australia is dutifully conforming.”

Laura Miller – “Critics say they’re obsolete, but New York’s main branch is a reminder of what the Internet can never do.”