The Challenges of Modern Public Libraries

The first challenge thate libraries face and feelis is a crisis of relevance. Paper backs became very common from about 19 35 onwards with the foundation of penguin books. Now that we are all collectors, it's very hard for a library to keep up with this. If you go into a branch library now, you'll find that romances, milsonboone or harlequin will make up quite a lot of the stock. But most of the people who value libraries as cultural institutions don't use them. And then there's also the challenge of digitising artefacts which is just one more thing that they have to cope with.