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Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2016-04-05
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdQwrhxw8LM
n't in twenty fourteen Americans got more book from one place than anywhere acts can you guess where that ends I'm gonna tell you a secret that's not Amazon more than two billion books were put into the hands of the reading public by library labor is outperforming Amazon that's not the image that most of us have of libraries today many of us still think of libraries as
being a quaint meadow class institution that an age of technology past its Judeh's the idea that libraries could actually be on the rise as curiously counterintuitive technology has changed even the way that we find information and the way the libraries provide us the media often loves to portray libraries as being in the final throes and live with themselves find the budget squeezed tighter and tighter every
year against a wave of rising costs and he's libraries find themselves busier than eva why is that why hasn't that fifty million people find their way to the front door of a public library in New Zealand physically or virtually if a year the libraries of our childhood form a powerful idea now minds about what lie please ask my childhood library with a constant of council voting
and it was gray and minimalist and inside it was filled with high shelves Sirius adults and books voters in Broward and produce of books dusty narrowing donkey it the mills and boon hoping to faced with the initials of the people that had read them and at west highland except for the occasional thump of a Jew date stamp many of us remember the fly very young recognize
that and we love it but the US library this library of nothing but books in silence that's a lie it's a mess of a previous time and that meant gets in the way of us realizing an important choice our world needs live raise more than even and I use the word need deliberate lie and I do technology and information and growing inequality in social isolation how
will it needs libraries the receipt show Martin volumes like education high cost bottles Mattamy Nathan so much it's out with something that many of us probably take for granted something the EMI literally have in your hand right now that Antony's the internet has become more than just a nice to have in the twenty first century without access to the end needs you want to fly silenced
you do not have a voice you don't have freedom of speech and you don't have freedom of access to information one in five children in New Zealand don't have access to the ensign in the home in we don't care about that because they don't have I spoke with Nate channel clash of planes we can hear about it because what makes his to the ends meet on
the development of some of those basic digital leisure fee scams the policy of us kids to go on and participate in society Chris is dramatically in order to apply for even the most basic job today you need to have an email address in Allentown and save a how do you do that if you don't have access to guns need %HESITATION any digital literacy scams how do
you find out about government services will support mechanisms that might be available to you if you don't have a computer Ross not fine lots of organizations moving services online in we generally think that's a pretty good thing but we can't ignore the fact sign many people don't have the axes or the skeletons to get to those services last year eight million Antony sessions were provided by
public libraries in New Zealand sixty eight percent on the before in another five and a half million wifi stations public libraries in New Zealand provide access to the end me and I have a ninety percent provider for a up to June twenty fifteen in the previous year high off a million people went to use education sessions on our library the ability of everyone to participate in
society as night possible while I praise but libraries are not just about technology libraries are also in physical and social spices even congressional library ready to bind a thing is no expectation judge me to leave many of us don't think about I resist by about for some people a library might be the only person I talked to today ally pre might be the way that someone
who is unemployed or noon ET onda I. becomes a sense of social isolation a visit to the library might be the only check but a new appearance or a tie couple can afford it libras a sum of a few remaining public in social spices I live with the loss of a cultural refuge we learn about how well and ourselves inside the walls and the walls of
the Alexander to belie break just a few kilometers away there's a painting in it's a painting of my gripes greitz great great great grandfather and the painting shows home and his brother peering bush and come down and I taint the she nine painting provides you with a powerful link to my past into my insistence and it makes me wonder I wonder what they would make of
the suburban jungle that sprung up I wonder what happens as on the hearing that they might I wonder what I would make of me hundred IT is Leisha loving just three kilometers down the road from where they were thus connection to our past or side makes my bridge the taiga in times of war ally resolve in the face places to be rains that cool deep background
that dislocation that separation from our past you're right Jacques of pestering in evidence speaks to them power that ally per hands hold on memory understand I present Intel up towards a feature in times of crisis as often the library that we change very following the Christchurch earthquakes as libraries re I penned they became places of familiarity during the Wellington floods at was the central library opened
its doors to anyone you need a place to stay libraries can physically and spiritually shelter house why wouldn't we want to fight for the hash why wouldn't we want to fight for our right to run mean back into another to lean in techniques it's very easy to type Roberts for granted the port Nicholson exchange and public library faced library New Zealand but here in Wellington in
nineteen forty one you don't need to look very far see what could happen when the mass of libraries takes hold since twenty team and the United Kingdom hundreds of libraries have been closed headed budget slashed following the global financial crisis just recently in Australia the government announced twenty million dollars with cats to its national heritage institutions including the National Library of Australia and just a couple
of years ago I was interviewed on tape a because the city council on the south lawn built that rather than have a publicly receive us perhaps we could just give everyone a candle these kinds of stories and made possible by the persistent math about what libraries on those live pristine remember from my childhood of nothing but books in silence what will you Jay take of live
raise a voice what will you Jay to make sure that your public policy doesn't come from a Google search your diagnosis doesn't come from a wikipedia page that everyone has the right to protest the pipe and democracy what were you doing to smash that must of libraries back into the house because libraries can and Jay change lives a few years ago I I went into hospital
for an operation in one is the employment a man we got talking and he asked me what I done I see it I'm a librarian and they seek to name her from real soft spot for librarians it is a young boy he had grown up in South Africa under a palm size in because he wasn't Weiss his options and as exist education was limited but every
day he will go into the library and the librarians potato man and he would set down on a table and they're given things to rage and he would write to us hats contained because vice librarians keep more about his education the freedom of access to information than they did about both on who wants wasn't allowed to be in the library and that young boy became a
doctor and that doctor has been educating the next generation of doctors for more than twenty years when people lose touch with libraries often hear them sigh he uses libras anymore so when you hear that you can tell them you can tell your chief executive no vice chancellor no school board if city councilor Hey uses libraries child studying for the science fair project the woman next year
at the bus stop is looking for a job a scientist researcher compound that might one day later killed at Simon's the retired friends he meet together to read the newspapers the researcher who puts on the floor Buffy has developed a new public policy the new parent and the baby taking the fifty cents the water Fletcher say the person next year watching antiques talk the teenager registering
