Ho‘ohana Aloha

neil-gaiman:

I’m a graduate student earning my master’s in library science, and everyone asks me, “Why are you doing that? Libraries are going extinct because of e-readers!” Obviously, I don’t agree, but I’m curious - what’s your opinion on libraries today and in the future, and do you own an e-reader?

I have a Kindle somewhere, but I have no idea where it is any more. On the other hand, I know where the Kindle apps are on my phone, tablet, iPad and Macbook Air, which makes knowing where the actual Kindle is irrelevant.

Let’s see… we’re entering an age of too much information, in which knowledge and information retrieval and navigation are going to be some of the most important skills anyone can possibly possess.  You are being trained in library science, which is knowledge and information categorisation, management and retrieval. And someone wants to know if your job is going to be extinct because we may not have as many places with lots of paper books any longer?

I think libraries are more vital now than they have ever been. And whatever form books (and other information) take in the centuries and millennia to come, we will always need librarians.