“Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay. In the modern state there are very few sites where this is possible. The only others that come readily to my mind require belief in an omnipotent creator as a condition for membership. It would seem the most obvious thing in the world to say that the reason why the market is not an efficient solution to libraries is because the market has no use for a library. But it seems we need, right now, to keep re-stating the obvious. There aren’t many institutions left that fit so precisely Keynes’ definition of things that no one else but the state is willing to take on. Nor can the experience of library life be recreated online. It’s not just a matter of free books. A library is a different kind of social reality (of the three dimensional kind), which by its very existence teaches a system of values beyond the fiscal.”

Zadie Smith, in the New York Review of Books. (via thebronzemedal)

(via thelifeguardlibrarian)

Notes

  1. autarkeia reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  2. bestdays345 reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  3. aynonymousuniverse reblogged this from awesomealice
  4. carmelapplesauce reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  5. displacedca reblogged this from benzado
  6. vitrolite reblogged this from matthew
  7. red-sneakersss reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  8. flaudio reblogged this from meucarowatson
  9. bigworldsmallhuman reblogged this from cremedelashan
  10. keuterthanyou reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  11. thrghthlkngglss reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  12. ivanperic9 reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  13. somethingboy reblogged this from highwaycollisions
  14. highwaycollisions reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  15. raevia reblogged this from turnontuneoutdropin
  16. liveathousandlives2013 reblogged this from kairos89
  17. acheekysmorgasbord reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  18. the-mists-of-asgaard reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  19. citiesandart reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  20. arguei reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  21. amourestaveugle reblogged this from thebronzemedal
  22. makingsmallchanges reblogged this from christophrawr
  23. coolandstupid reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  24. wildflowersinherhair reblogged this from wheneeyoremetbelle
  25. wheneeyoremetbelle reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  26. desenreda reblogged this from elffia
  27. teasip reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  28. thepiratenamedj reblogged this from sylviasybil
  29. missdiazepam reblogged this from bohemianarthouse
  30. azazellos reblogged this from bookshelfporn
  31. wobegon-effect reblogged this from bridgetisthebomb
  32. thought2 reblogged this from jillsies
  33. kafkasbro reblogged this from elffia
  34. elffia reblogged this from valerie2776
  35. sonu2988 reblogged this from bookshelfporn