Every revolution has its counter-revolution, wrote the sociologist C. Wright Mills. That might hold true even for the digital revolution, which for the better part of two decades swept all before it. As the democracy-destroying and privacy-annihilating effects of social media have been increasingly laid bare during the past couple of years, though, it’s fair to ask whether the internet revolution is yet another that carries within it the seeds of its own failure.
A small but sweet dissent from digital dominance was registered in recent months by students at Yale University. As a Washington Post story that appeared in Tuesday’s Valley News recounted, plans by the university’s administration to relocate thousands of books from the main undergraduate library in order to create more space for study met stiff resistance from students who wanted to preserve the serendipity of browsing and the traditional atmosphere of studying surrounded by the physical presence of books. Nearly 1,000 signed up on social media (irony noted) for a “browse-in” — a mass check-out of books — to demonstrate that the screen-loving generation also includes a fair proportion of print-book lovers.
“The idea of making this library have less books is to make it modern and feel streamlined — like an airport terminal,” Olivia Facini, a Yale senior, told Connecticut Public Radio. “Who likes to spend lots of time in an airport terminal? I don’t. Everyone hates layovers, right? I don’t want to treat my studies like I’m waiting for a layover.”
For her part, Susan Gibbons, the university’s chief librarian, argued that declining circulation and a recent increase in the size of the student body justified reducing Bass Library’s print holdings from 150,000 books to 40,000. She said the remainder would be moved to nearby Sterling Memorial Library, where they would still be accessible.
The students, even those majoring in scientific disciplines that depend more on electronically accessible materials than do the humanities, weren’t buying it. “The potential that libraries represent for students is the ability to go to a random shelf, pick up a random book and realize that there’s this whole new world that exists,” said Felipe Pires, a computer science major from Brazil.
Students also complained that bad lighting and densely packed stacks in Sterling made browsing difficult and research intimidating. In the end, the administration executed a partial retreat, agreeing to retain 61,000 print volumes in Bass.
There’s a lesson here for all libraries, not only those affiliated with educational institutions. At a time when libraries are struggling to find their proper niche in the digital age, they must remain true to their traditional mission — maintaining, improving and updating their print collections. It’s not at all clear that in the end digital reading will supplant books as the way people choose to engage with the written word. (We note happily that in Royalton, where a long-awaited renovation and addition project is getting underway, the added space will allow the library to enlarge and display its collection.)
In the same vein, bricks-and-mortar bookstores offer an experience that cannot be replicated online. Books in their physical form cast a spell that cannot be matched by the wizardry of electronics. As Pires, the Yale student, observed, much of that power originates in the chance encounter with a book and a world previously unknown. Books cannot work their magic, though, if they are not on the shelves.