I would not be here today without the library of my childhood. I salute the Catholic priests for the gift of reading. They did many wrong things to us but they certainly gave us an eternal library of ideas that many of us carry with us everywhere we go today. As a little boy growing up in Nigeria, I travelled the world in books. The walls of my school's library fairly throbbed with the power of words. I loved the library and it was one place where you could find me, basking in the smell of books. I remember the few distractions that kept me from the library of my childhood. There were girls. Then there was the coming of television to the same village. The library suddenly started getting stiff competition.
Advances in media technology are forcing libraries to go to people rather than for people to go to them. Distributive, push, rather than pull. I would argue that the custodians of libraries all over the world did not see the internet revolution coming. When they did, they remained complacent, convinced that it would be a passing fad. Attempts at reform have been half hearted; it is not enough today to simply install a bunch of desktop computers in a library and christen it a "media centre." When librarians bother to examine how today's children live their lives they would understand why funeral dirges keep humming in the ears of their dying libraries.
- Ikhide
Stalk my blog at www.xokigbo.com
Follow me on Twitter: @ikhide
Join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide
No comments:
Post a Comment