Last year the library in the town where I grew up unveiled a $20.8 million transformation project. Among the new features: a museum-quality store, an 18-foot video wall, two professional multimedia studios, an outdoor deck, an enhanced MakerSpace, and a Yamaha Disklavier piano. There were also water bottle refilling stations, extended café hours, double the number of entrances, and fewer books.
Was it true, as the bookish gossiped, that nearly a third of the library’s physical collection had been discarded? No official number was forthcoming. All we knew for certain was that the main floor, previously the home of the stacks, had become “flex space,” and the majority of the adult books were in tight quarters on the ground floor. Moreover, thanks to zealous weeding, some titles came and went so fast in the catalog that it was almost as if books were on loan to the library.
And yet…
