Comment on Editorial: Why spend $50 million on the “last library?” by Aaron Highe

As we race headlong into a new and glorius future, pause a minute before you toss that copy of The Sun Also Rises onto the trash heap of technology along with buggy whips and johnson rods.
Books are tangible and therefore harder to control. During much of the last two centuries the way to control what the populous knew or thought they knew was to manipulate the print media. The printed word was an awesome power to harnessed. And if the despots in charge needed to re-write history they burned all books that didn’t fit their revisions. The written word is and will always be the medium of freedom. Why? Because it is the least fragile. Cared for and hidden away it can brought out in times when seemingly all hope is lost and used as ammunition in the battle for freedom.
I have embraced the technologies of our day and been immersed it the circuitry of our modern world. But in the past few years I’ve felt my inner Luddite creeping to the surface. It has made me turn nearly 180 from my techno-path.
Should we keep libraries around? I used think, “No. I have my computer read all written things to me in it’s very natural voice. What good is a building downtown with dusty old books?”
Well, firstly as repository, a tangible, hold it in your hands, storage place, for thought. Where thoughts of freedom and liberty can be held close to your heart and cherished. (This assumes that the “state conrolled” library doesn’t keep those hallowed works in a cardboard box in the basement.) Where people can meet and discuss the matters of the day. Unfortunately, much of a modern library’s energy is used in indoctrinating children and I think we should shift it’s function back to the adults. Educate yourselves, then teach you children how to use a library.
Secondly, the internet is an extremely fragile storage medium. We have intrusted it with nearly all our precious information both present and past. (Does your doctor have a PDR on his desk, or does he go the computer when checking info vital to your case?) Who hasn’t lost a hard drive with all their “stuff” on it? The web can go dark in an instant and where will you be then?
In 1859 a Cornal Mass Ejection or solar flare hit the earth with such energy that telegraph operators were electrocuted. The current was so large it was reported that railroad ties caught on fire. The communication and transportation tech of the day was affected but not destroyed. Should that happen today the effect would send us back to before 1859 and it would take months, even years to repair our electrical grid to say nothing of the internet. Not likely? In 1989 a CME knocked out half the power grid in Canada. In 2003 a burst shut down Sweeden’s grid, blinded the navagation gear on aircraft, damaged 28 satellites and killed 2 of them. In 2001 there was a flare so large that it was off the scale. Luckily it was not aimed at the earth. The government has been preparing for such an event. Their infrastructure will survive it. Ours won’t. Anything and everything that you value should be in hard copy. Order BOOKS not Kindle files.
Finally, the present adminstraion is moving to take control of the internect from the private sector, ie the people. ALL tyranical governments start the same way: control the media. Soon you may not be able to download and read or watch things that are deemed subversive. Right now in Italy I’d have to have a permit to post this missive. I wouldn’t even think of trying it in China. By the way their internet control system was designed by Microsoft. A similar system is nearly ready for implimentation here. All cellphone conversations are trackable in the US and that grid can be shut off with one command.
So should we keep libraries? If they concentrate on the printed word, yes. If they push to be just media centers, no. That house of cards we already have access to.
BOOKS my brothers and sisters, BOOKS! Buy, read, hoard, hide, and share, BOOKS. At the very least print yourself everything that is valued. They can’t change or shut the off the printed word with the click of mouse.
Aaron Highe