Save Books!

My mentioning yesterday that the recession has publishing off kilter got me thinking a bit more about it. It's a topic that's getting a lot of coverage lately, but one of my favorite recent articles was by Katha Pollitt in The Nation a few weeks ago. In it she advocates for federal and grass roots aid for publishers, libraries, books for poor children, books in schools, the whole nine yards. Digital publishing has a very useful place (here we are commiserating on a blog, after all), but she makes a good case for the social purpose of print books in benefiting America's poor (who aren't going to be purchasing a Kindle), besides the community functions of public libraries. It is there, for instance, that people who can't afford home Internet service can get free online access to look for jobs--when I first moved to New York in 2002 I was in exactly that position, bouncing between up to four or five branches a day to troll for jobs (the moving around was due to half-hour limits). How much more important it is today in our economy's current condition.

The above picture is of the Free Library of Philadelphia building on Vine Street. Philadelphia's been in the news lately for the battle that's been going on over city funding, library closings, and public desire to keep them open. There's a lot online about this--and the situation unfortunately presages a similar battle in many other cities--but here's one article I found from a couple months ago. This comes from LibraryJournal.com, a great site with other recent stories on the Boston Public Library, for instance, and a great article by Andrew Albanese on an ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) report on how libraries can turn the crisis into an opportunity.