photo by ArtChick
It’s true it seems–the Ridgewood library is walking (running?) away from its traditional role as a book lender. E-books are not so convenient or popular a vehicle for substantive reading yet to justify this shift. Sad to say this, but those who run the Ridgewood library may be just as bored with the crucial job of improving the substantive knowledge of the general public as the school district is becoming with respect to the K-12 students. It’s all about process now. There is no longer any need for people to have a solid foundation of raw knowledge in a broad variety of subjects, a ‘la the classic “liberal arts” education. No, today they need only use their cell phones to do a targeted web search (and forget the results five minutes later). So teaching them the bare minimum of how to do a digital search is the only role that really matters for a library or high school. /s
