The hallmark of public libraries – the printed book, bound by covers and centuries of page-turning – is being shoved aside by digital doppelgangers.
Around the country, libraries are slashing their print collections in favor of e-books, prompting battles between library systems and print purists, including not only the pre-pixel generation but digital natives who represent a sizable portion of the 1.5 billion library visits a year and prefer print for serious reading.
Some of the clashes have been heated. In New York, protesters outside the city’s main branch have shouted: “Save the stacks! Save the stacks!” In Northern Virginia, the Fairfax County library system chief recently mused that the Friends of the Library were no longer friends – a feud fueled by outrage over a print collection that has shrunk by more than 300,000 books since 2009. The drop in Washington is even more dramatic: Nearly 1 million books have vanished since 2009.
“To say Gutenberg’s days are over is a terrible mistake,” said Dennis Hays, a former U.S. ambassador and chairman of Fairfax Library Advocates, a group of residents at war with library officials. “Nothing can take the place of a book.”
Librarians are feeling the heat.
“We’re caught between two worlds,” said Darrell Batson, director of the Frederick County Public Libraries system in Maryland, where the print collection has fallen 20 percent since 2009. “But libraries have to evolve or die. We’re probably the classic example of Darwinism.”
The evolution of information flow has forced their hands, librarians say. Just as books advanced from slabs of parchment to paperbacks, they are transforming again, from paper to pixels. With Plato only a download away, libraries have lost their monopoly on knowledge.
In evolving, librarians are steering tight acquisition budgets to e-books, which are more expensive than print because, among other reasons, publishers fear large databases of free e-books will hurt their business. E-book spending has grown from 1 percent of library budgets to 7 percent, according to a Library Journal survey. One library in San Antonio went much further, opening a bookless, all-digital branch called BiblioTech.
Meanwhile, print book budgets are slipping fast – from 67 percent of acquisitions in 2008 to 59 percent in 2015 – with reference titles bearing the biggest cuts so far. Asked why, Batson turned to his computer, opened his browser and typed www.google.com. “That’s why,” he said.
With the newfound physical space, libraries are adding rooms for community meetings, hacker spaces with 3-D printers, and entrepreneur centers to help small businesses.
In the process, centuries-old library traditions have been abandoned.
Recent branch renovations in the region have – book lovers gasp – grouped fiction and nonfiction titles together. There is a lot less shushing: Instead of discouraging noise throughout the stacks, libraries now set aside special areas for quiet contemplation. Want to bring your lunch? No problem.
To library futurists, this is progress.
“For a lot of people, libraries represent a certain kind of quiet, a certain kind of place, a certain kind of book in large numbers,” said Matthew Battles, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and co-author of Library Beyond the Book. “These are beautiful ideas and ideals. But they demand reinterpretation and cultivation from generation to generation.”
To library purists, this is nonsense.
“I get the sense that a lot of people have a feeling that tech has just moved along, that books are these old-fashioned things, that everything is going to be on the Internet, that a Kindle and Google is all you need,” Hays said. “But getting reliable information is a constant challenge today. Libraries help people find the credible information they need.”
The purists say the futurists are pushing budget-busting e-books when large swaths of society still want print, particularly as research emerges showing print provides a more serious, less distracting reading experience.
They also cite sales data showing that e-reader and e-book sales have leveled off and argue that the next generation of library patrons still strongly prefers print.
One survey of readers ages 18 to 68 found that just 5 percent of millennials read only e-books. Twenty-one percent of the millennials said they read more hard copy than e-books, and 34 percent reported that they only read print.
