Libraries should provide more books rather than invest in new technology such as e-books

and e-journals.
Introduction
Currently, an increasing number of people have concern on how the public libraries make
use of their limited resource. As a librarian, overall I disagree with the view that the public
libraries should invest in new technology such as e-books and e-journals compared to providing
more books. Libraries are places that people go to for information. According to Wikipedia,
a library is a collection of sources of information and similar resources, made accessible to a
defined community for reference or borrowing. It provides physical or digital access to material,
and may be a physical building or room, or a virtual space.

All these includes books, periodicals, newspapers, manuscripts, films, maps, prints, documents,
CDs, cassettes, videotapes, DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, e-books, audiobooks, databases, and other
formats. Libraries range in size from a few shelves of books to several million items. Books are
only the tip of the information iceberg: they are there, and libraries can provide you freely and
legally with books. More children are borrowing books from libraries than ever before books
of all kinds.
As a librarian, I honestly believed that a library is a place that is a repository of information and
gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information and mental health
information. It's a community space. It's a place of safety, a haven from the world. It's a place
with librarians in it. What the libraries of the future will be like is something we should be
imagining now. Physical books are tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel
good in your hand: they are good at being books, and there will always be a place for them. They
belong in libraries, just as libraries have already become places you can go to get access to ebooks, and audiobooks and DVDs and web content.

Summary
As a librarian, libraries should provide more books rather than invest in new technology
such as e-books and e-journals. I'm going to tell you that libraries are important. I'm going to
suggest that reading fiction which is really a reading for pleasure is one of the most important
things one can do in ones life. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for people to understand
what libraries and librarians are, and to preserve both of these things for the future benefit of
mankind.
Libraries really are the gates to the future. So it is unfortunate that, round the world, we observe
local authorities seizing the opportunity to close libraries as an easy way to save money, without
realizing that they are stealing from the future to pay for today. They are closing the gates that
should be open. Libraries must invest in books because not all books are available in digital
form, especially some specialized editions. Paper books are more reliable in a way that they
cannot be deleted accidentally. Everything comes and goes. It might be even possible that
someday internet is not available or closes down. Throwing away books might not be the best
option. Internet has a plethora of sites. Children must be given books to read rather than internet
as they might end up watching uncensored sites as well. Seeing books often inspires and
stimulates imagination.
Books are the way that we communicate with the dead. The way that we learn lessons from those
who are no longer with us, that humanity has built on itself, progressed, made knowledge
incremental rather than something that has to be relearned, over and over. There are tales that are
older than most countries, tales that have long outlasted the cultures and the buildings in which
they were first told.
According to a recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,
England is the "only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy
and numeracy than the youngest group, after other factors, such as gender, socio-economic
backgrounds and type of occupations are taken into account".

Or to put it another way, our children and our grandchildren are less literate and less numerate
than we are. They are less able to navigate the world, to understand it to solve problems. They
can be more easily lied to and misled, will be less able to change the world in which they find
themselves, be less employable. As a country, England will fall behind other developed nations
because it will lack a skilled workforce.
The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to
show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. Libraries have already become places you can
go to get access to e-books, and audiobooks and DVDs and web content. That means, at its
simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read
them.
Literate people read fiction. Reading a fiction book for example has two uses. Firstly, it's a
gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the
need to keep going, even if it's hard, because someone's in trouble and you have to know how it's
all going to end ; that's a very real drive. And it forces you to learn new words, to think new
thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that,
you're on the road to reading everything. And reading is the key.
The second thing fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are
looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26
letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination,
create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places
and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is the same
as I am as well. You're being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you're going
to be slightly changed. Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to
function as more than self-obsessed individuals.

Libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication.
They are about education which is not a process that finishes the day we leave school or
university, about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information.
My other responsibility as a school librarian is to encourage reading, which all the research
shows is crucial to student success. Focused, engaged reading occurs with printed books, and far
less with online material.
As a librarian, I do not believe that all books will or should migrate onto screen even thou more
than 20 years before the Kindle turned up. You see, in my opinion a physical book is like a shark.
Sharks are old and there were sharks in the ocean before the dinosaurs. The reason there are still
sharks around is that sharks are better at being sharks than anything else is. Physical books are
tough, hard to destroy, bath-resistant, solar-operated, feel good in your hand: they are good at
being books, and there will always be a place for them. They belong in libraries, just as libraries
have already become places you can go to get access to e books, and audiobooks and DVDs and
web content.
Libraries need to hold on to things that work well even as they keep up with new technologies.
That personal interaction is supported by the electronic availability of materials but is not
replaced by it. Besides, no online collection can replace the unique collection of resources that I
have built over a period of years to serve the specific needs of my students, faculty and
curriculum.
Just because theres a lot of information online does not mean that students know how to find it,
nor is the freely available information always the best information or the right information. One
of my primary responsibilities as a librarian is to teach information literacy skills defining
research questions, selecting and evaluating sources, avoiding plagiarism, documenting sources
and in my experience this works best face to face with students.

Libraries are places that people go to for information. Books are only the tip of the information
iceberg: they are there, and libraries can provide you freely and legally with books. More
children are borrowing books from libraries than ever before books of all kinds: paper and
digital and audio. But libraries are also, for example, places that people, who may not have
computers, who may not have internet connections, can go online without paying anything:
hugely important when the way you find out about jobs, apply for jobs or apply for benefits is
increasingly migrating exclusively online. Librarians can help these people navigate that world.
Books and libraries are working (or living) models of knowledge formation. We need them for
the same reason we need models of atoms and airplanes. They are hands-on. They are
immersive. Holding a book in our hands, we orient ourselves within a larger system. Books offer
a place away from the inbox, where we can go to quiet our minds and reflect.
This is indeed the start of a new era. Digital devices are transforming how we live in all kinds of
thrilling ways, and weve only begun to explore their potential. But embracing these new tools
doesnt require us to simultaneously throw out all the old ones, particularly those that continue to
serve useful purposes. Who says it has to be an either-or decision?
The idea that books are outdated is based on a common misconception: the belief that new
technologies automatically render existing ones obsolete, as the automobile did with the buggy
whip. However, this isnt always the case. Old technologies often handily survive the
introduction of new ones, and sometimes become useful in entirely new ways.
Does that mean we wont need librarians at some point? No, the dilemma of disappearing
libraries is not just about efficiency, its also about values. Librarians recommend books because
they are part of a community and want to start a discussion among the people they see around
themto solve the worlds problems, but also just to have a conversation, because people want
to be near each other. The faster technology improves and surpasses human capability, the more
obvious it becomes that being human is not merely about being capable, its about relating to
other humans.

Print has been around since human ancestors drew tracks in the dust and is still the only form of
durable information that requires no mediationthat is, no device to interpret it. Reading a book
is the most direct relationship a person can have with information apart from listening to
someone speak and there must be some kind of common cultural institution filled with pews of
comfy chairs and the musk of paper. Like the bicycle, the book is the best thing for what it does
and will likely be around as long as humans are around because, as James Bennet wrote in
the Atlantic,
Technologies have a way of supplementing, rather than simply replacing, one another.

In todays world with the development of information communication technology ( ICT ),the use
of gadgets such as smart phones, tablets, iPads, notebook has transformed the way we live,
communicate and do things. This means that public libraries should keep pace with the modern
technological development. There is nothing wrong using latest technology in ICT to help
managing libraries more smoothly . Our own experience has revealed that computer software can
help us manage the books efficiently. Not like before, with the library management system,
borrow and return books become much easier. All the records can be searched just by typing
some key-words. Moreover, some online booking system provided the pre-booking function to
readers; users can preserve the books they like at home and pick it up from the library. Also, it is
eco-friendly, as all the records are saved in computers which is paperless.

It is well known that the advantage of using DVDs and Videos is space saving, by their large
storage. For example, one DVD can save at least 10000 pages of books. If all the books can be
transforming into DVDs, that means that we can read or borrow it online thru the internet no
matter where we live. Therefore, e books can contribute to the purpose of preserving libraries
and also the need to have position of librarian intact in all libraries. With these detail statements,
it shows how important it is for libraries to provide more books. Reading books is the traditional
things for human being. Many people still prefer reading the traditional books than the electronic

books. Besides, books printed in early centuries, stored in many old libraries, are great fortune to
us.

Conclusions
I think we have responsibilities to the future. Responsibilities and obligations to children, to the
adults those children will become, to the world they will find themselves inhabiting. All of us
as readers, as writers, as citizens have obligations. I thought I'd try and spell out some of these
obligations here. I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public
places. If we read for pleasure and if others see us reading, then the process of learning is
ongoing every minute of our life whereby we learn and we exercise our imaginations. We show
others that reading is a good thing. Reading a good habit to be practiced in everyones life
We have an obligation to support libraries. We have a huge responsibility to show to our
community the importance to use libraries, to encourage others to use libraries and most
importantly to protest the closure of libraries. If you do not value libraries then you do not value
information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are
contributing towards a huge catastrophe of damaging the future of our future generation.
We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to
them stories we are already tired of and pretend acting out the characters in the story by doing,
acting out the voices, to make it interesting and not to stop reading to them just because they
learn to read to themselves. As parents, we can use reading-aloud time as bonding time just like
the old days during those time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the
world are put aside.
Before I end my report again as a librarian I would like to stress on these important points as a
reminder to myself and anyone who read this report. Libraries must invest in books because
1.

Not all books are available in digital form, especially some specialized editions.

2.

Paper books are more reliable in a way that they cannot be deleted accidentally.

3.

Everything comes and goes. It might be even possible that someday internet is not
available or closes down. Throwing away books might not be the best option.

4.

Internet has a plethora of sites. Children must be given books to read rather than internet
as they might end up watching uncensored sites as well.

5.

Seeing books often inspires and stimulates imagination.

Albert Einstein was asked once how we could make our children intelligent. His reply was both
simple and wise,
"If you want your children to be intelligent," he said, "read them fairy tales. If you want
them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
He understood the value of reading, and of imagining. I hope we can preserve our traditional
libraries with well knowledgeable librarians to assist everyone with more books in this world
where the development of information communication technology (ICT) are changing vastly in
our life. I hope we can give our children a world in which they will read, and be read to, and
imagine, and understand.

( 2670 words )

References :
1. Public Library Wikipedia the free encyclopedia , 5 November 2015
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_library
2. Paul Gaiman - Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming,
28 October 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-futurelibraries-reading-daydreaming
3. Should Libraries Invest in eBooks and e-Readers? Pros and Cons, 28 October 2015
http://www.slideshare.net/florencye/should-libraries-invest-in-ebooks-and-ereaders-pros-andcons
4. Why public libraries matter : and how they can do more, 28 October 2015
www.forbes.com/.../why-public-libraries-matter-and-how-they-ca...
5. The internet cant replace the libraries, why they matter more, 28 October 2015
http://www.salon.com/2015/05/28/

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