Yesterday I attended a meeting at what used to be a research institution. While waiting for the meeting to start, I wandered down the hall into a suite of rooms, which I immediately recognized as a Library. Or, rather, a *former[p/i] library. It was clearly not being used in that capacity. The set-up made it clear that this is precisely what it had been. There was the main desk, there the tables, there the carrels. The bookshelves must have been there, and the card catalogs there. eventually came across a cabinet of microform journals, which confirmed it all.
I found an occupied office nearby, and asked what happened to the library.
“Digital revolution,” he told me.
What, were the journals now all online? Were databases accessible through everyone’s computer monitors, and were there subnscriptions to index services? No. As far as I can tell, the library was simply gone, with no replacement.
This hits hard, especialy when I consider that at another company I have just seen the remnants of their once-immense research library being packaged up in plastic wrap. Another department wanted their space. And the company I used to weork for (until the end of last year) had its library grotesquely shrunken, and what’s left resides in a single room. Its fate is still undetermined.
It seemsd that no one wants the trouble and expense of maintaining a library, something I havde always regarded as essential to any research endeavor.
And, yes, I know that there has been a revolution in libraries, with a lot of on-line stuff, and the journal explosion has made it impractical to keep up with the journals one formerly had. But these libraries aren’t merely cutting back, they’re shutting down altogether.
And, in other news, my town’s public library just squeaked by with its “accreditation”. If they hadn’t made it, they’d be out of luck on getting funding, and that would make it reduce its already reduced functions still further, or even close down.
This is grotesque. Doesn’t anyone care about libraries anymore?