Amsterdam Central Library, opened in 2007

Passion Rather Than Business Sense Fueling Book Publishing Start-up Funding? (DBW)

It’s not what a library stocks, it’s what it shares (The Guardian)

Bestselling author riles many, calling libraries ‘no longer relevant’ (Christian Science Monitor)

Amazon shares climb on Kindle e-book optimism (Yahoo! News)

Kindle Daily Deals: The Last Dance by Ed McBain (and 3 others)

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  1. It would seem that Dreary’s argument that libraries have become irrelevant is primarily a rant against what he perceives as income lost to him due to lending. I suppose that he will eventually want the eBook equivalent of Pay Per View. Unbounded greed.
    Certainly, libraries need to reinvent themselves, especially if eBook lending shifts to centralized national libraries but there is still a lot of good that can be done by local libraries. There’s still lots of paper books that need to be handled locally but looking ahead to that time when paper is no more, we can still imagine librarians assisting in the discovery and effective consumption of words and other media. Evolve or die.

  2. Frank – you’re probably right about ol’ ‘Dreary’ (!), but my first thought when I saw this story was that it was probably just a publicity tactic. Honestly, I have a hard time believing that anyone whose life and career revolves around books or publishing genuinely wants to see libraries closed or outlawed or whatever.

    I could probably take a statement like that seriously if it came from a young kid in his 20s, but an adult who has undoubtedly had his or her life altered many times over as a result of knowledge acquired at libraries? I don’t think so. I’m calling bullsh*t on this one.

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