Thoughts on Libraries, Research, and the Future

 

I have recently been reading a book that is primarily about the fire that destroyed the Los Angeles, California Public Library in 1986. The book citation is as follows:

Orlean, Susan. 2019. The library book. London: Atlantic Books.

While reading the book, I began to remember all of the libraries I have visited and those that I worked in over the years. I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had followed my real interest in libraries and research and become a librarian rather than a lawyer. Interestingly, because of the pandemic, I believe that these last few months have been the longest time in my life when I have not physically visited a library excluding the two years I lived in Argentina and the time when I was very young when I didn't have the means. I spent 24 years of my life so far working in libraries as either a bibliographer or a reference librarian or a volunteer/missionary. 

The one biggest change I have seen over the years is the impact of the internet and the digitization of millions of books. The effect of the current pandemic has not really impacted my reading habits. I have been reading books online on an iPad now for years. Actually, except for the books at home, it has been a long time since I read a physical book from a library. 

The idea of a library is that you do not have to buy a book (or other media item) to read or view it. Some of us have accumulated thousands of books but the cost of those books including the cost of moving and storing them is considerable. Notwithstanding my rather large collection of books, if I had to buy all the books that I have read, I would have no room in my home to live. 

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, the average public library has just over 80,000 books. This number is likely skewed because of the huge libraries. From the American Library Association website, here are the total number of books (volumes) in the ten largest physical public libraries in the United States.

https://libguides.ala.org/libraryfacts

I realize that many older people resist reading books online but as time passes, younger people who are used to reading on their phones and tablets will not see the utility of carrying a physical book around to read. 

The reality of online reading is that there is no real way to determine how many online books are now available for free and behind paywalls. Google has the largest online collection but current statistics are not easily found. The latest numbers claim 30 million books digitized. Here are some other ebook websites with the current number of ebooks available. 

• Archive.org 27,707,831 texts but the website also has millions of digital copies of other media Free
• HathiTrust.org 17,446,576 total volumes Free and only available to universities
• Dp.LA Digital Public Library of America 41,598,372 images, texts, videos, and sounds Free
• OpenLibrary.org 1.4 million books free

You can see a long list online at Wikipedia: List of digital library projects

Will ebooks eventually replace paper books? At one time, some of us may have thought that might happen but as time goes on, the possibility seems very remote. Ebooks only make up about 20% of all book sales. See "The 2010s were supposed to bring the ebook revolution. It never quite came." Despite my preference to read books online, I still have piles of books around for reference. Despite my earlier feelings about libraries, I think that with their digital books and the other media available, they will be around for a very long time.