Poet Ponders the Digital

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley June 2007 Issue May 10, 2007 Libraries without Hours I love books. Our apartment has bookcases standing in our living room because the walls were already lined with bookcases. There are books in our dining room, too. You would think with so many books I’d have no need for libraries or bookstores, but you’d be wrong. I’m always coming across facts I want to check, ideas I want to research, and authors I know I should read. Libraries let me browse, finding books I didn’t know existed. The joy of wandering “the stacks” in a university library is that I end up checking out two books for every one I knew I wanted to read. But, to be honest, library hours are not what they used to be. Worse, university collections aren’t being updated because hardcover books are not cheap. When I was looking for books on Chaucer, it seemed Fresno State’s selection was limited to a single shelf. Tulare County’s libraries do the best they can with limited resources, too...