The Auster Defense

Moving Library Books. Taken from the Exeter University library Flickr Stream

Paul Auster, in the first book of his New York Trilogy, created an interesting argument about the use of words. To paraphrase his argument: if an object no longer serves it's purpose, it really cannot be called by it's proper name anymore.

So, according to Auster, a library with no books cannot be called a library. What makes Auster's argument interesting is that is has something to with current news in academia.  According to the news website Inside Higher Ed, the Penrose Library at the University of Denver is planning to perminantly move 80 percent of their books off campus. 

The Article goes on to state that the library's focus is to focus more on becoming a social and study space for students, and that most of the texts leaving the library are journals (which are mostly accessed digitally), government documents, and less-used books, citing a national trend for an increase in library social space.

The librarians arguing for the storage of those materials do have some valid points. As an English major - a degree that requires lots of research from journals and books - I've relied heavily on electronic journal articles, mostly due to the convenience and ease of access (one can simply search for relevant articles rather than having to slog through mountains of possibly relevant journals)

Also, I have never needed to find government documents. I know that having documents available is important for transparency, but I've never known anyone to read those documents (at the Fargo Public Library also has a similar setup, but I think for a public library, it's more important to the people at large to have access to those documents)

However, the part about unused books has me concerned. Although all of the books don't get checked out of a library, it's still important to have them available for students, especially those that are out of print, but not yet in the public domain, or outside of the price range or scope of the students or other libraries - musical scores for example, are kept at the NDSU library, and the cost of a symphonic score can be outrageous, depending on the piece)

Also, to tie in this argument to Auster's, can a library keep its name without the books? There are lots of meeting spaces on campus - computer labs and common areas aren't rare, and the availability of study material must be kept in mind along with the availability of study space.

There may be a point where academic libraries can digitize their entire collections, and facilitate more meeting space for students. However, we have not reached that time just yet.