09 Feb The Death of the Written Word?
Posted at 07:44h
in Mobile Web
This weekend saw numerous organised demonstrations across the UK in response to plans to close around 450 public libraries due to spending cuts caused by the recession. In my own quiet, leafy Oxfordshire village, where the most exciting thing to happen all year is when Morris Dancers come to town in May, over 200 people turned out to protest against the potential closure of the village library, led by TV presenter and local resident Kirsty Young. The ‘back off’ message to the country’s councils has been loud and clear. But it’s led me to wonder whether there actually is a future for libraries in an increasingly digital world?
Consider the facts. Electronic books for the Kindle now outsell paperbacks, having surpassed hardbacks six months ago and now selling more by a factor of three times. And e-readers have really only been around in any serious form for a year or so. Publisher Harper Collins reports that 25% of its sales are ebooks, up from only 6% a year ago. High street chain Waterstones, the last bastion of bookshops, lost nearly £10 million in the last six months. Under this sort of pressure, what sort of future exists for books as we’ve all grown up with them?
At first glance, this technological advance seems awful to most people: the death of the paperback?! But behind the statistics, some great things are happening. Kindles are fashionable…teen fiction is hot…children are suddenly enthusiastic about stories rather than video games. Reading is cool again. And how often do you think that a teenager goes to a library or reads an actual book?
So although I supported the Save Our Libraries campaign (in mind if not in body; someone’s got to babysit!) I can’t help but feel that the initiative and the hundreds of people who demonstrated (including my good wife) overlooked the huge grey elephant in the dusty and old-fashioned reading room: that of technology. Technology, as with the music industry, has changed our reading habits. The digital word on tablets, e-readers and smartphones is taking the place of the written word in books. Is this is a bad thing? No, not really, not if it encourages kids to read again. But what it means for the already museum-like public libraries, I’m not sure. Maybe county councils are right?
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