Access to social media means that more children can learn to express themselves. I love libraries, my children loved libraries but the children that most needed the experience were not taken there. Like it or not, most children have Internet and mobile phones these days. I no longer have to curtail my reading thanks to Kindle as books are prohibitively expensive here.
It's a great pity the right of free speech isn't based on the obligation to say something sensible.
Depending on how young the youngsters are we're talking about, it's probably their parents too who are also not using libraries. Our kids used to love Mrs M (avid reader) taking them to the library, and Moodyson II in particular would come home with armfuls of books. But none of us use the library anymore (I rarely did anyway) as the choice of books has dropped so much, she's basically read them all and there's never anything new in. Sadly a lot of people complaining that libraries are closing voted for the perpetrators of this action.
I completely understand that Cass but you are an avid reader - but do many youngsters use the internet for reading?
None of our godchildren, nephews and nieces or friends' children ever read for pleasure so never enter a library. It's rather sad really.
Oh, I agree, I was talking about the written word, rather than actual books, that children who would never have been taken to libraries or encouraged, due to parental indifference, now have access to the written word more readily in households where there are no books. There no longer seems to be a culture of reading among youngsters. As far as I can tell, my own children no longer read books and they are all middle-aged!
It's a great pity the right of free speech isn't based on the obligation to say something sensible.
Post by Berry McPaper-cuts on Nov 7, 2019 21:56:41 GMT
For me it is sadness because people fought to get public libraries and yes, in my area Nellie, it was LA cuts that finished them off. Having a book in my hands is a completely different experience to reading online. I can’t turn the pages at my pace, can’t easily go back and forth. When I think of the great libraries of the world , and the ancient books in them that have gone from generation to generation it breaks my heart. The work that went into those early handwritten books. Too easy to steal someone’s words for your own or change them online.
Ours went to the library only very occasionally. Mr EB hates having books that other people have handled so always bought the ones he wanted. We tended to buy them for the boys too. I used a library when I was young as my parents bought me very few books but as soon as I could, I bought my own.
Of course, as a consequence, we now have enough books to open several libraries!
I think my sisters owned about half a dozen books between them and their children never read much at all.
For me it is sadness because people fought to get public libraries and yes, in my area Nellie , it was LA cuts that finished them off. Having a book in my hands is a completely different experience to reading online. I can’t turn the pages at my pace, can’t easily go back and forth. When I think of the great libraries of the world , and the ancient books in them that have gone from generation to generation it breaks my heart. The work that went into those early handwritten books. Too easy to steal someone’s words for your own or change them online.
Again, I agree , but how many of us would ever get to see those Ancient books or even know of their existence without the Internet. It is a force for good as well as a force for evil. Digital copies of many great works means that come war, flood, whatever, they will not be lost to us. When paperbacks became readily available, and cheap, there was a huge backlash, then, with people muttering that they spoiled the whole reading experience but they enabled people on a low income to enjoy some great classics and explore new authors. Long before the Internet, they started the move away from public libraries as people built their own collections.
Yes, people fought to get public libraries but they are uneconomic if they are not used.People moan about interesting little artisan/specialist/local shops closing but they do most of their shopping in Supermarkets so how are the small traders able to survive....if you don't use it, you lose it....
It's a great pity the right of free speech isn't based on the obligation to say something sensible.
Yes, people fought to get public libraries but they are uneconomic if they are not used.....if you don't use it, you lose it....
But a library shouldn't be an uneconomic business, it should be a service provided through our taxes, not a profit making venture. They're not used because funding has been slashed thanks to our Tory regime and there's little left there to use!
This is exactly where I disagree - I think libraries are not used because the generations below us don't read for pleasure so have no need to visit a library. If local authorities of any political hue have to make cuts it is obvious that they will do so where a service is being ignored.
You can't blame the Tories for everything Mr M......
Don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to.
You can't blame the Tories for everything Mr M......
Fair enough about the libraries where mine and a younger generation have an alternative (and an older generation in some cases) , but there's a hell of a lot of the older generation who are not internet savvy, who've paid their dues and are being denied a service they've enjoyed for many years. And don't get me started about other public services like the NHS, schools and the police etc etc who've been screwed over by the Tories....yes I can blame a hell of a lot of this mess on them.