The Need To Read

Stuart Kells loves books.  Not just their content--the books themselves.  He's been collecting them for years, and also writing about them.  Thus his latest, The Library: A Catalogue Of Wonders.

He discusses the story of libraries, from ancient to modern. For example, there's the famous, and long-lost, library at Alexandria.  There's the Vatican Library.  There's the Morgan Library.  And the Folger Shakespeare Library.  But Kells' book isn't a history.  Instead we've got a series of stories, often anecdotes, about what libraries have been and are today, not to mention all the odd bibliophiles we meet along the way.

It made me think about the very concept of the library.  We all grew up with libraries, but it's not as if they're part of nature.

Someone, or some people, had to first decide it was worth collecting books (or scrolls, or vellum, or papyrus, or whatever medium was being used).  They had to decide to put them in a building.  And how do you organize them?  Do you stack them, or put them in drawers, or on shelves?  How do you catalogue them?  How do you take care of them?  Where do you get the books?  Which do you decide to include?  How do you pay for them?  And who do you let look at them? (When we think of libraries, we think of lending libraries, but this is a modern concept.)

Then there's the big question today: what is the future of libraries?  Already, they're far more than a collection of books.  But if they're not a collection of books to begin with, are they even libraries? (The root of "library" is book, of course.) Physical books themselves are becoming outdated.  Books on paper, the library's mainstay, may disappear in the near future.  And reading material is becoming more and more dispersed, readily available anywhere--no need to go to a special building.  Perhaps this generation will be known as the last one to regularly go to the library, or need one.