The Bookless Society, Explained

As the Information Scientists move forward with their nefarious plot to dumb down America, we think it is high time to expose the mechanics of this outrage. In the past some political regimes did not bother to hide their destruction of books, but in the twenty-first century Biblioposers are opting for a more subtle approach. Here are the six simple steps being taken by academic libraries to create an illiterate citizenry:

1) Carefully compile detailed circulation statistics to bolster the claim that reading books is on the decline.

2) Simultaneously promote “maker spaces,” petting zoos, exercise machines, virtual reality screens, and a host of other irrelevancies to push against the available storage in the library building itself.

3) Use steps 1 and 2, justify an outrageous plan to move the library’s print collection to “off-site storage” and make a few half-baked promises to fetch a given volume on any patron’s request.

4) Wait a year or two until the inconvenience of the moved collection results in a further nosedive in circulation statistics.

5) Use the declining circulation statistics to destroy the stored collection.

6) Rinse, lather, and repeat.

This knavery is being foisted on complacent taxpayers from Arkansas to Montana these days, and it will only end when the Information Scientists burn the last book. It is ingenious, in a darkly cynical way, to use the excuse of declining circulation to set in motion a process that will all but accelerate declining circulation and justify the destruction mankind's knowledge legacy. We can appreciate the Machiavellian machinations while while simultaneously condemning their practice.