To the Editor:
Brian Sullivan’s “Academic Library Autopsy Report, 2050” (The Chronicle, January 2) prompts mixed feelings. Dry humor and librarians’ roles in the demise of their libraries bring smiles. But I cannot take it seriously.
Libraries do more than serve undergraduates, yet the prognostication of demise focuses on them. Recently too many reports reflect a world in which all that seems necessary is using Google to knock off run-of-the-mill assignments. What about graduate work? What of the irreducible-to-digitization aspects of, e.g., much religious pedagogy, iconography, etc., and yes, textuality? One library I know inherited many titles about Latter-Day Saints, the Reorganized Latter Day Saints (now Community of Christ), and many small branches—a “Mormoniana” collection. As to digitizing it, the resources and interest are lacking but not appreciation for the collection itself, owing to outside interest. And digitizing cannot replicate some books. Brigham Young University either doesn’t own these titles or won’t lend them. This is but one counterexample to the idea that physical books will be neither necessary nor used.
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