Library Journal

I don’t think the argument in favor of libraries is especially ideological or ethical. I would even agree with those who say it’s not especially logical. I think for most people it’s emotional. Not logos or ethos but pathos. This is not a denigration: emotion also has a place in public policy. We’re humans, not robots. The people protesting the closing of Kensal Rise Library love that library. They were open to any solution on the left or on the right if it meant keeping their library open. They were ready to Big Society the hell out of that place. A library is one of those social goods that matter to people of many different political attitudes. All that the friends of Kensal Rise and Willesden Library and similar services throughout the country are saying is: these places are important to us.

I love this book,” Ms. Winfrey writes in the July issue of O, The Oprah Magazine, which will highlight the new book club on its cover and feature an interview with Ms. Strayed. “I want to shout it from the mountaintop. I want to shout it from the Web. In fact, I love this book so much and want to talk about it so much, I knew I had to reinvent my book club.

Fewer shelves could open valuable space for other library programs, like computer centers, teen tutoring, and adult education classes. For customers, downloading e-books is just convenient. Gussie Young has been checking out books at the Queens Library since moving to New York in 1963. Now with e-readers, she doesn’t have to come here to check out books.

For him that stealeth, or borroweth and returneth not, this book from its owner…let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever.