Library News, by David W. Keeber
Red Rock News
Date: May 23, 2008
First things first. In last week's column, I spoke about the Book Sale being held to support the Village Service Center in the Village of Oak Creek. The problem with what I wrote was that I gave the wrong dates for the Sale. It should be May 24th, 25th and 26th, Saturday, Sunday and Monday – THIS WEEK. The Sale will be in the old ice cream parlor storefront in the Weber's IGA marketplace starting at 10 AM to 4 PM. All proceeds will be used to assist in the operation of the Library's service center on Cortez Drive. Even if you are a resident of Sedona-proper, if you are in the Village, help out. Through the years, residents of that side of our community have contributed their time, talents and hard earned cash to support the main site of the Library. Now, we can all help them to get good library service in their community.
When I was a kid, I had a particular fascination for dictionaries. I took to reading through them because I was so intrigued by the many words that I didn't know. When I finally found out about the Oxford English Dictionary (the OED), I was blown away. To actually suggest that a dictionary could possibly contain all the words in the English language – well, my goodness, that was just too much! It was written in an impossibly small font size that needed a magnifying glass to read but that didn't matter to me.
Upon taking the position of Librarian here at Sedona Public Library, I was thrilled to see that the OED could be purchased in a twenty-volume set that didn't need a magnifier. It has a truly impressive weight on the shelves. Remember, it has all the words in the English language. Another impressive fact was that there have only been two versions of the full set since its original publication in the late 1800s.
Now, the news is that the OED will no longer be published in bound paper form. Apparently, according to an article in the New York Times magazine, it just isn't worth the publishers' time and expense to produce the bound version so they are simply transferring to an online version. There are many good reasons for this, not the least of which is that updates to entries can be done at almost no expense and much more quickly.
Those who still fancy "owning" the OED can simply purchase an annual subscription for about $300. Consider that the bound version was nearly $2,000 and suddenly, this seems pretty good. That is, until you realize that you probably only use a dictionary three or four times per year anymore. Computers offer some great automated tools for this purpose. We quickly have come to depend on these new tools. Books seem to be growing more passé all the time.
Here at Sedona Public Library, we offer books you can download, books on MP3 player devices, online access to databases versus books on the shelves and books on tape and CD. It can be a particular challenge to our budget to purchase four or five copies of a title, each in a different format. What happened to the good old book, a simple collection of bound paper, printing and occasionally illustrations or photographs? Are we headed for electronic books only?
It must be said, of course, that having a book in hand is the favored form. You know that saying, "Who would want to curl up on bed with an electronic book?" It is true that for some versions of books, the stuff that populates the best seller lists, I would prefer to have a real book. But, some items simply aren't the type of items you would curl up with. Take for example the Physician's Desk Reference or an encyclopedia or, perish the thought, a dictionary. Typically, items of this sort are used only for quick look-ups, not curling up and comfy reading.
Why pay thousands of dollars for a bound book when it is only taking up valuable space on the shelf and getting used only occasionally? Maybe, just maybe, we need not be frightened by the idea of some books being relegated to electronic-only form.
It is true that one can now find plenty of popular, best seller-type books in electronic form. For some folks, this is actually the way they prefer to read. There are loads of different tastes in this world and, as Dad used to say to me, "The more the merrier!" (He did have a certain philosophical bent!).
We need only recall that there are more books being published how than at any time in human history to recognize that cries of "The book is dead," may well be hysterical. So long as there is a market for bound books, just there is a growing market for electronic books, we will have readers. One can always curl up with one in bed – plugged in or not!
