Change is in the air

Image: Sign spotted at Pike Street Market, Seattle, during the American Library Association midwinter meeting, January 2013.

Lately we’ve been seeing more and more common sense, passionate appeals in favor of libraries and their continued importance in society. This new, distinctly 21st century sensibility to libraries has the feeling of rediscovering an old friend, and riffs on a central theme: The public library is a vital local resource; it is well-known and heavily used more than ever before, even in this digital age; and it has a rich and vibrant history rooted in the foundations of human civilization itself.

What is perhaps most remarkable, is that this new trend of pro-library sentiment is showing up all over, from the mainstream media to the relatively obscure corners of blogosphere where one finds stories like the one linked above (and where City Literal proudly resides). This reversal of fortune, which may be an outgrowth of the “new normal” created by the Great Recession, is so astonishingly different than the zeitgeist of just a few years ago when everyone was gloomily (or gleefully, depending on who you listened to) predicting the final demise of the library. The change is, well, refreshing. And frankly, it’s long overdue (no pun intended).

Link to blog post: Why Libraries Are Important. (from “A Little Blog of Books and Other Stuff.”