Author states, libraries are “no longer relevant”

I’ll admit, I played hookey on Friday.  The weather in my area was about 55 degrees (in February!) with the sun shining brightly, so my boyfriend took me to the zoo for the afternoon!  It was the perfect way to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

But, on Thursday, I did come a cross an article from The Sunderland Echo that got picked up by The Guardian about best-selling, British, children’s author, Terry Deary.  In the article Deary states, “I’m not attacking libraries, I’m attacking the concept behind libraries, which is no longer relevant.”  He goes on to say, “Because it’s been 150 years, we’ve got this idea that we’ve got an entitlement to read books for free, at the expense of authors, publishers, and council tax payers.  This is not the Victorian age, when we wanted to allow the impoverished access to literature.  We pay for compulsory schooling to do that.”  Deary argues that libraries are causing independent bookstores to close, not paying the authors their rightful wage, and publishers are being affected to.  Thankfully, there are a number of authors that are speaking out against this idea, who are major proponents of libraries and librarians and appreciate the work libraries do for their work.

I think I can see where this author is coming from, but I also think it’s absolutely ridiculous.  I don’t have statistics, but I’m pretty sure that if parents have the money and their child checks out a book from the library and falls in love with, they are likely to buy other books by the same author for their child.  And I’m a librarian (and like many of us) my apartment is chock full of books.  Just because I can borrow them from the library, doesn’t mean I don’t also purchase books as well.  I think Neil Gaiman, another British author, said it best in a tweet, “…And yes, libraries make readers.  They don’t starve authors.”  Thankfully authors, librarians, and others are fighting for libraries because they can see there worth.

Read the whole article in The Guardian or check out the original article posted in The Sunderland  Echo.  On Friday, Deary has since defended his remarks about libraries, see the newest article here.