A friend was recently cut from the job she's held for many years. She's quite personable, insanely well-read, and is fully part of the community which she served as librarian. She's also approaching retirement age--which, together with the foregoing--makes me suspect that actual job performance wasn't the issue. But that's mere speculation on my part.
But it's doubly sad, because it's my against-the-grain belief that libraries will survive chain bookstores. (Used bookstores are another story b/c the novelty dynamic doesn't apply--most I've visited have had more of a "library" ethos.) Assuming that the purveyors of byte-books cooperate (by which I mean allowing a library to lend out digitial copies just like Joe Blow can), the concept of the overdue book vanishes. That frees up librarians to focus on what they're really paid to do, which is to know what's where in the library, and whether it's any good for the purpose at hand. And, of course, to make sure no one's using the library's computers for illicit purposes.
As they currently exist, chain bookstores exist to push pulp. There's no vetting except with an eye to what will sell right this very nanosecond vs. what is useful and thought-out, much less what will stand up to time or further scholarship. Because--with all due reverence for the written word, and I have great gobs of that--more books are fit to be borrowed than owned. I expect the ratio to grow ever steeper, at least in the shorter term, as publishers adjust to new realities with the typical response of doing even more of "more of the same." (In other words, brace yourselves for more erotic vampire fiction, (political) anathema-hurling that would make the medieval (anti-)Popes blush, and "History" sections nearly monopolized by WWII and the Templars.
That's where the libraries step in, namely rescuing you from the 95% or more of everything that's dreck. In the end, perhaps the libraries will go straight to the publishers for digital books, further pushing Amazon into a virtual department store, or Barnes & Noble out of the mall's anchor spots. Hopefully, indie. bookstores that offer a value-add similar to libraries, picking the books you'd want to keep, rather than just read. Because the point is not to offer a book (and its review in Publishers Weekly) and wait for the crowdsourced reviews to pile up.
The point is to know the author by reputation and/or to--gasp!--actually read the book first. That's something that chain stores aren't willing to pay their employees to do. Therein lies the difference...and the opportunity. Nor only to make a decent living for librarians and indie. booksellers, but to bring back some of the respectability that publishing has (justifiably) lost.
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Apologies for the belated post: We had company yesterday...a much overdue dinner and movie. (Alan Rickman could read the phone book and I'd still listen raptly. [happy sigh])
