NB | The Value of Library 20161008

Some people think that the library is waste of money and computer technology is replacing the function of library's. To what  extent do you agree or disagree?

As government focus more and more of their attention and finances on the provision of Internet access, budgets are being slashed to other seemingly obsolete facilities such as libraries. While this is a social phenomenon that may alarm traditionalists, I would contend that it is simply an inevitable byproduct of modernization, and that within a fews, libraries will only exist on university campuses.

Obviously, the vast majority of services provided by a library are now available on the Internet. Novels, research papers, academic journals and encyclopedias are all freely available online. Even universities now provide digital library services that can be accessd by computer or smart phone. When such a wide array of  informaiton can be connected to from the convenience of our home and office, why would anyone go to the trouble of visiting a library?

However, such an argument focuses on the pragmatic rather than cultural significance of a library. To many people a library is a hallowed seat of learning, and as such, they must be preserved at all costs regardless of prcticality. That may be true, but the prohibitive cost of keeping these places open for purely symbolic reasons is most likely beyond the budget of most governments.

To sum up, while the idea of keeping libraries open may be attractive, for practical reasons the vast majoity of them will most likely close within the next decade or so. Those that are kept open should be of cultural importance and used to store rare and valuable books for th sake of historical study.

作者认为图书馆在互联网的冲击下虽然不会消亡，但作用非常有限，仅是贮藏一些珍贵的实体书供研究所用。