No, but as a civilization increases in size and complexity, it also becomes characterized by increasing disparities in access to wealth and power (sociologist-speak for ‘the rich grab all the good stuffz’). This stratification is also associated with the rise of mechanisms to defend the access of the privileged against the desire of the rest of the population for access to some part of the same.
We no longer count ‘wealth and power’ in terms of how many heads of cattle one owns, but rather in terms of access to knowledge and information. It’s also that same knowledge that allows those who are dispossessed to better understand how their lack is not a personal failing, but the result of an institutionally sanctioned and protected greed on the part of elites.
Today, the rich and powerful are terrified of what the masses may do if they get up from their videogames and actually take a stand demanding equitable access to resources. An informed and engaged public is a scary thing to those who want to keep everything in their own hands.

The “font” in question was the only one available for the dot-matrix printer we had, a Radio Shack special hooked up to a TRS-80 Color Computer.

Libraries are revolutionary idea and are based on a philosophy of community cooperation in pooling resources to buy and maintain a community owned storehouse of valuable publications.

What would Asimov have thought of the internet? archive.org? books.google.com? Etc. Fact is, lots of libraries have outlived their usefulness’s.

And he did, I think he wrote more than 500 books and countless papers.

[N.B. All spelling errors are here used sarcastically. No flames please.]

James H. Schmitz is another in the tone-deaf ilk, made worse by trying to clean up his own psyche (Telzey toys, anyone?) when the psychologists pounced on his bathrobe-wearing father figure with something like little joyful squeals of Freudian glee. Whether the psychologues were correct is immaterial; Schmitz thought they were, and so denied our future his own sequel to Witches of Karres.

The library also does a great job of keeping their print collection current, relevant, and useful. (They had each Ex Machina trade in circulation the week it came out. Yes, they carry graphic novels.) And yes, there are some things for which dead-tree format is still the most useful and accessible.

They are the very model of a modern [strikethrough]major general[/strikethrough] 21st century library.

But their funding is still getting slashed. They’re still having to cut hours and staff.

Libraries aren’t necessarily getting closed because they’re old and irrelevant. They’re getting closed because the geniuses in local government don’t see the public good in free, open access to information.

/daughter of a librarian, please excuse the soapbox

ETA

amistil sequence

Love the chaos!

Free the Anachronism!

Far from being irrelevant, libraries are more important now than ever. We still need to know about old technologies even if they are old and outdated, we still need to preserve at least some of the “dead tree format” that is in existence even if it is not read by the new little young things and we need to preserve an open, free space for people to access knowledge in whatever format.

We need to be very careful about “getting rid” of things before we know what it is that we are getting rid of and what impact that will have on future generations.

Only a dedicated funding source will save the Troy Public Library, now. Hopefully the citizens of Troy will say yes on August 2nd, and keep our library open, and make Mr. Asimov proud.

I got most of my info from city council meetings and here:

http://trustroy.org/?page_id=16

Thanks for the love Happy Mutants!

p.s. if the state of Michigan had maintained its statuary revenue sharing at recent levels instead of handing our tax cuts to corporations we wouldn’t need a dedicated millage.

Although…. I said something’ similar once in high school.

< >>

What would Asimov have thought of the internet?

A quick google found this interview on exactly that subject. Turns out that Asimov loved the idea and thought it would promote independent learning.

Funny story: my college physics professor was convinced that the second law of thermodynamics disproves the theory of evolution. So he made that argument in a lecture one day. Fortunately I had been reading an Asimov on just that subject the previous day in the college library….

Asimov could write a book on anything.

What I got back from him was my same letter with his notes written in the margins. My memory of all the exact wording is thin atm, but essentially “yeah right”, “whatever” and other small, snide remarks, maybe five or six total. What’s really flattering is that he spent at least 30 seconds to a minute to intentionally crush the admiration of a young boy! That’s akin to walking across the street to slap an ice-cream cone out the hand of a child.

Heinlein won out back then as far why I read SF anyway. Asimov is just another genius who I ended up not really caring for, including reasons beyond the above story.

I really should see if that letter is in the time machine that is my packrat mother.

The wrongness of your sentiment is epic. Your tastes are neither superior nor universal. The library is for everyone, including you. So I do like your second point a lot better than that first one.

Libraries shouldn’t be closed: they should be reinvented for the XXI century.