
A Literary Legend Fights for a Ventura County Library - alexjmann
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/us/20ventura.html?_r=1&em
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schacon
I grew up in Ventura, maybe a mile from this library and I went there pretty
often as a kid. It has been in danger of shutting down and has had fewer open
hours for probably over a decade now - it's really pretty sad.

I agree that libraries are incredibly important, but it's disheartening that
Mr. Bradbury dislikes colleges, universities and the internet so much, which
have likely done so much more to educate people on the whole recently than the
traditional local library system. In fact, the largest use of our local
library here in the SF Bay area that I see now is the computer room. Free
access to the internet for people who can't afford a computer or don't have a
quiet place to use one is really enabling. That is in general far more useful
to people than the book selections, which have been overshadowed by Borders
and Barnes and Nobles, where you can often find a larger and more up to date
selection and can sit and read them as well.

Mr. Bradbury says:

“They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To
hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’

That's really sad. Why fight for a few hundred people to have access to books
like yours for free, but turn down the chance for millions to be able to read
it? How many more people can have access to "Fahrenheit 451" with a local
shared $200 computer and a free version on the internet as opposed to paying
for printing out a copy and shipping them to public libraries? Multiply that
by every important book in the world and the costs of the first scenario
hardly change and the costs of the second rise almost linearly.

I hope my old library survives, but I really hope that his views do not.

~~~
gojomo
Bradbury has had a distrust of the purely-virtual forever. Check out, for
example, his 1951 short story "The Veldt" from "The Illustrated Man"
collection. (You can find the story text online or easily read in a library or
bookstore -- it's only 19 paperback pages.)

Also from 1951, check out the story "The Pedestrian".

Because written text is still so important in our online communications -- TV
hasn't become the final media -- the future isn't quite as he'd feared. But
there's still wisdom in his warnings.

In particular, watch out for anyone who says, "Now that we have the Kindle, we
can use all these old books as kindling!"

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yangyang
It is a shame when a library closes. I find they (at least in their
traditional incarnation) are a place where I can really concentrate, something
that's so difficult almost anywhere else.

Some of my fondest memories from university were of studying in the library.
And also looking at random books in there, unrelated to my course.

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russell
The literary legend is Ray Bradbury, who seems to have become an appealing old
eccentric.

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michael_dorfman
The "appealing" part is something new. I saw him speak about 15-20 years ago,
and he really skeeved me out-- his view of technology was so naively
optimistic as to be frightening.

I can't argue with the library thing, though. More power to him.

~~~
hachiya
Do you mean naively pessimistic instead of optimistic?

The interview indicates that he has a negative view towards the use of
technology to replace traditional media.

~~~
alexjmann
That was my impression as well.

