Luxury of Libraries

For many of us, a library is a comfy presence that goes underappreciated, often forgotten for long periods of time. They're the places most prepubescents-to-young adults roll their eyes and groan when visiting into is suggested. Unfortunately, libraries are mocked and ridiculed by ignorant adults, too. A waste of space, they claim, the humble library relegated as nothing more than dormant relics that ought to be eliminated in the new modern tech era.

And yet many places throughout the rest of the world would give anything to have access to the mountain of information and storytelling we take for granted here in the U.S. Authors, many cash-strapped and underappreciated themselves, beg people to at least read their work through libraries rather than pirate and stiff them the relatively low amount for all the effort it took to write their books.

But libraries are not a given. They're not a standard in every community. They are a privilege. The result of importance placed on education to improve the lives of the communities they serve. If your community is destitute, people are starving and without access to the basics such as water and medicine, how do you allocate precious little funds to a library?

Even less-impoverished places are without libraries. The locations are so remote that it's too expensive to keep a library open for tiny populations. Mobile libraries offer a partial solution, but they're a fraction of the books out there. It's also hard to justify operational costs with fewer and fewer people visiting libraries. In an age of instant from the internet, if access and selection is already difficult, it makes sense to look up and acquire what you need, especially when it can be found for free.

Libraries are steadfast, and some do seem like relics with their curated materials as dated as the buildings. Yet even these limited scope version are still a luxury by comparison to the parts of the world that have none.