Robert Darnton recently wrote in the New York Review of Books (12 June issue) about “The Library in the New Age”. It is definitely a very intriguing read. In the first chapter, he asked the question of “what will become of research libraries in the face of the technological marvels such as Google?”
Talking about libraries, for those who have yet to watch the Sex & The City - The Movie, the New York Public Library was featured quite prominently in the movie as Carrie Bradshaw borrowed a romantic poetry book as well as the wedding venue of Carrie and Mr Big. Unfortunately, the marriage didn’t happen because Mr Big got cold feet on the morning of the wedding. I’m sure it raised the profile of the New York Public Library a little. Hmmm … I didn’t remember seeing any librarians though.
And on the topic of librarians, an American writer and professor, Junot Diaz, wrote an opinion piece in the Syndey Morning Herald on 25 May about how a librarian may have played a part in keeping him on the straight and narrow by introducing books for him to read. I think I heard something similar at the recent Library Association of Singapore Conference at the keynote by Mr. Kishore Mahbubani. Junot Diaz won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Books … the latest hip, new book is about James Bond, Devil May Care