Could more bookstores survive if they act like libraries?
Are libraries helping millennials be even more antisocial?
I stood at the library counter a couple of weeks ago. And that’s when it hit me that I have not talked to a librarian in all of 2019. I still go to libraries a couple of times a month, but I just have no real reason to talk to the librarians.
When I want to renew or reserve a book that I’m not sure I want to buy, I pull out my smartphone and click a few buttons. When I physically walk into a library to get my book(s), I go straight to the shelves and then the self-service kiosk to punch in my library card number and scan the codes. And if there’s a book I want that’s not at the library yet, I just fill in the info under “Suggest a Purchase.”
But a few weeks ago, I couldn’t find my library card (for the first time ever) so I had to walk over to the counter to figure out what I was supposed to do next. I stood there cracking jokes with a librarian about losing things (I once “lost” my smartphone while talking on it; she “lost” her glasses that were sitting on top of her head) and pondered on just how much I ignore the human connection in these places. Give or take the one librarian I speak to often — mainly so I can say “Bye, Felicia” to her as I walk out the door (her real name is Felicia so I know “Friday” was a love-hate movie for her) — there’s no reason I need to talk to anyone inside.
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I temporarily suspended my library card to check all my pockets at home, but by the time I came back to get a new one, I found out my library card was in a lost-and-found drawer that that librarian hadn’t checked. And off I went right back to those kiosks, computers and my smartphone to not talk to librarians again. But as a bookworm who used to work at the now-closed Borders, I started wondering how is it that libraries manage to survive while bookstores are closing?