A tale of two countries' libraries

[SoCalDem]

http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/698252


TARA WALTON/TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO
Jane Pyper, Toronto's chief librarian, in the stacks; books are "the perfect format," the others are ever-changing.


In recession-wracked U.S. cities they are being targeted for closure. Not so here
Sep 20, 2009 04:30 AM
Lynda Hurst
Feature Writer

Last Saturday, Toronto's chief librarian, Jane Pyper, was at the Annette St. Public Library celebrating its 100th anniversary.

"I'm completely confident," she says, "that 100 years from now, they'll be celebrating their 200th birthday." She is? Hasn't she heard? The traditional local library has had its day. First of all, it's now called the Internet and it's everywhere you are, in hand, on lap. The cat will have it next. Google, despite a few copyright obstacles yet to be hurdled, wants to create the world's biggest library online. Odds are, Google will get what it wants.

And what about the news out of the U.S. of library closures and outsourcing to private management companies? Or the mayor of cash-strapped Philadelphia threatening to shut down all the city's libraries on Oct. 2 if the state doesn't ante up?

So Friday's Libraries in 2020 conference in Toronto is likely to be a bleak affair, a death knell of sorts, right? Don't even suggest that to a Canadian librarian.

Contrary to what you might have heard, libraries are not in a terminal state of decline, "they're not even sick," says Wendy Newman, a senior fellow at the University of Toronto's faculty of information, formerly library sciences, now known as the "I School." "Libraries are back big-time, they're having a renaissance." Circulation was up 27 per cent this summer across Ontario's 330 systems and 1,000 branches. Toronto, already the largest system in the world with 99 branches, is expanding with two more. "We're not intimidated by the future at all," laughs Shelagh Paterson, executive director of the Ontario Library Association.

THE FUTURE BEGAN to arrive some 20 years ago, and "libraries were the first place to make computers available," she says. "So we'll still be anticipating what things people need in the future."

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[virgogal]

1. I cannot even imagine life w/o public libraries. Mine even has books

on KIndle.

What a great bargain libraries are.

[stuball111]

2. Difference is... Canadians can read... and do

:rofl: :rofl:

[underpants]

3. My mother was a librarian for 40 years

I basically grew up in libraries-lost the reading bug in my 20's-but got it back about 10 years ago

I have spent a lot of time in libraries in the last year due to being unemployed for a long time and having our computer crash. The library I go to is always busy with people of all ages. My daughter and I go at least twice a month.

Libraries are alive and well.