Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate of England during Queen Victoria’s reign, wrote a lot of great poems. I’ve been reading some of them online, and discovering the beauty of his language.
And so I got a hankering to read Idylls of the King–probably his most famous work, after The Charge of the Light Brigade. Back in the Bronze Age, most of us read little pieces of the Idylls in junior high school English Lit. I thought maybe I might be old enough to appreciate it now.
I went to my local library to get a copy of Idylls of the King, one of the classics of English literature. They didn’t have it. “Never heard of it,” said the librarian behind the counter. “What kind of idols?” He looks at me like I might have some potentially disruptive mental problem.
“Not idols,” I explain. “Not I-d-o-l-s, but I-d-y-l-l-s. They’re Arthurian poems.”
Now he’s really staring at me. Like, “What planet is this kook from?” I can see the adjective “Arthurian” is really throwing him. He’s also twitching a little bit, as if feeling with his foot for the button on the floor that summons the police. So I just said “Thanks, anyway,” and walked out.
In fairness, if I had felt like filling out a form, my library would have borrowed the book for me from another library. The inter-library computer system would have found the book no matter where it was, and eventually I’d be able to read it. This is a good thing. By this method I’ve been able to read several obscure books that had to be sent from far away.
But according to a librarian friend of mine, the days of the library as a place for books and readers is drawing to an end. Classics, schmassics–we only keep hot new books on our shelves. And so what? You want some boring old classic, we’ll find out who has it and order it for you. We’ve only got room for hot new stuff–no room for old stuff.
This’ll work for a while, until there is no library left that still has the classics. Our library had a set of The World’s Great Books, from Homer to Hegel, on its own self-contained display shelves, on wheels so it could be easily moved out of the way. It wasn’t bothering anyone, but the library board decided to get rid of it, selling off Plutarch and Dante and Milton and all the rest of ’em for 25 cents each. The director was sick over it, but she couldn’t get the board to change their minds. Besides which, they are primarily interested in other things–primarily in getting children to try homosexuality: if the books they’ve been putting on the shelves lately are any indication.
Today’s hot new stuff will be tomorrow’s garbage; but the classics will still be the classics.
In Gresham’s Law, bad currency drives good currency out of circulation (because people hoard good money and always try to pass off the crummy money).
I think there’s another kind of Gresham’s Law that applies to libraries–bad books drive out good books.
We will need those classics, someday. But who will still have them?
1984, and not in drag
For better or for worse, the internet is making libraries obsolete. As an aside, you can find many of the old books on archive.org.
For now we can find them. Information does get lost. I’m glad I can find books on archive.org; but I can imagine a scenario where there’s a mammoth internet crash and all sorts of information, including books, gets lost forever.
We are making ourselves very vulnerable.
Like you said, you found Tennyson’s poems on the Internet (God’s gift to Christians if they will use it). I have an attic full of great books I have purchased for a steal at our public library’s twice yearly book sales. I no longer buy these discounted books because I can read them for free Online (I have run out of room, and my money is budgeted). I can even read “hot” new books for free at our Books-a-Million store that even provides comfortable seating for reading.
I don’t like to read books online, I’d much rather take a book to bed with me–or sit outside on a nice day, and read. But yeah, running out of room can be a big promble. And I find it hard to get rid of books I’ve enjoyed. This is what gets me into trouble.
There are no libraries anywhere around here, thus there are no inter-library computer systems, nor are there any book stores. The “National Book Store” chain, can be found in a few of the larger cities, but one is a two-hour drive, and the other over four hours from our place. At one time they had a lot of books, but within the last three years or so, their stock of books has shrunk too almost nothing. The only used book store I knew of, was two hours away, but went out of business two months ago. I almost felt like crying.
I am like you; I really don’t like to read books online. I much prefer a book in hand, then on a computer screen. You ask; “We will need those classics, someday. But who will still have them? Well, I found “Idylls of the King” online. And I am sure many classics can also be found online. But again, a real book made of paper (hemp paper is about the best), is still king.