Virtual Libraries

I read a good article today by Amber Gallant  in the Los Angeles Review of Books about how libraries, despite many of them being closed to patrons, are still doing their work by providing people with ebooks, movies, audiobooks, and other electronic sources. Here's an excerpt from the article:

Even though the library building, as the physical expression of that right, has temporarily shut down, the work that libraries do in maintaining that intellectual freedom is more important than ever. What it means to be a citizen, especially a citizen of the world (a fraught term even in good times) is changing. Our concept of the world and how we move through it is shrinking to fit our computer screens. But in isolation, we turn to the arts to entertain and inform us. We lose ourselves in our personal or public research. Either one can keep us grounded, by renewing our curiosity, teaching us something new, or simply carrying us away on the far-ranging adventures our favorite authors dream up.

It’s more important than ever that we have access to arts, journalism, and science, and that librarians and library staff continue to work to defend and facilitate that access. Even as the days roll past, slow and fast and full of that strange new interior geography that comes about when social life frays at the edges, I feel grounded in knowing that in some small way I’m helping to uphold the model of intellectual freedom that facilitates the beautiful and provocative research done in this academic community. It is a tenet I cling to for stability, as our society sickens and we isolate ourselves, waiting, dreaming of the day when its health is restored.

Read the whole article here.