Yesterday, I asked you if libraries are still relevant. With the Information Revolution and all, do libraries still deserve the funds that they get?
Perhaps, everyone of you who had read this post formulated your own opinions that most likely varied from one another. I will give you my take.
I do believe that the traditional libraries (the physical bookshelves and all) are still relevant. No sort of new technology will ever replace the aroma that books in the library give. Nothing can replace the delicate cloth-like pages that we get to touch when we read these pieces. Nothing will replace the authoritarian aura that these books impose at the turn of each page. Nothing can replace the grandeur they emit as they stand in between bookends. All these traits and all--they cannot be replaced by the pages of the Internet.
No, I am not saying that the Internet is bad. I definitely do not. But there are just some things about the library that can be replaced by the Internet. For one, it is not that easy to get good information from the Internet. With a bit of web design, and a little bit of SEO, an inexpert can be an expert in his chosen field without taking up formal education. Even I can put up my own Wikipedia article on relativistic physics if I wanted to. On the brighter side, however, information uploaded to the Internet are more often updated than those in the library. So we need a compromise. And that is mixing the library with computing facilities, which is done in almost every library on the planet, anyway.
In the end, the Internet will only help the library in giving information to people. It can never replace the libraries that has always been loved by people like me.
All UPSable
