A Pandemic of Dimwits

The recent presidential election and subsequent accusations of voter fraud has proven one indisputable fact: a shocking number of Americans are complete idiots. Following their orange-faced messiah down the rabbit hole, many voters embrace bizarre conspiracy theories that have no basis in reality. One might cast about for the many reasons of this mass stupidity, but at True Archives we know where to place the blame. Eschewing print, these nattering nabobs of nonsense seem to get all of their information from the internet.

If there truly is a vast conspiracy in our republic, it can be found in the management and operation of academic libraries by Information Scientists who encourage their students to rely on screen pixels for enlightenment. The massacre of books in the millions has left the American college library little more than a pizza parlor staffed by overpaid computer jockeys. Instead of delving deeply into the discourse of distinguished authors, students now take in their information in easily-digestible driblets of dross. It is little wonder that so large a portion of this benighted nation is incapable of thinking beyond a bumper-sticker slogan when they have actively been encouraged to jettison the practice of deep reading for the past two decades.

Someday this pandemic of ignorance will pass, but until that blessed event arrives it is high time the Biblioposers in charge of our academic libraries send their collections to the archives for safe keeping. When we finally emerge from the shadows, we will need the wisdom of the ages more than ever.

The More Things Change . . .

A common refrain from those commenting on the current pandemic pestilence is that society will never really return to “normal.” For example, cautious and prudent citizens will be slow to resume their former patterns of restaurant patronage, if ever. Theaters, concerts, indeed ANY public gatherings will be shunned by many for a long time to come, and the change in the behavior of citizens will be noted and lamented.

However, Information Scientists can rejoice! Following up on their two-decade anti-book marketing strategy, libraries will finally be able to dump the final books from their physical collections because no one will be watching! "We deliver our content digitally," say the proud biblioposers, and the boast is true. To interact with a library is no longer a matter of visiting the place, and likely the vast majority of former patrons will avail themselves of socially-distant visitation via the internet. Meanwhile the codex massacre can quietly continue within the abandoned buildings. As they say, "While the cat's away..."

Should you venture out from your quarantine isolation you might wish to drive by the rubbish dumpster behind your local academic library and take a last look at what used to be their collection.

Why Do You Hate The Book So, My Brother?

If you had asked a librarian why he or she had chosen their profession as recently as thirty years ago, the answer would have certainly involved the respondent’s love of books. After all, why choose a profession dedicated to the custodial care of codex conglomerations if you are only interested in other things?

How times have changed since those innocent days! Now we find librarians replaced by information scientists who spend their time staring into screens, either on their desktops or on their handheld telephones.. The books, once the raison d'être for a librarian, are now considered a physical annoyance that must be removed to continue the transformation of cavernous repository buildings into a curious combination of coffee house, restaurant, lounge, and video arcade. In fact, dealing with the books themselves has been regulated to the lower-paid members of the staff, much like cleaning the restrooms and seasonally shoveling snow from the entryways. The current COVID-19 pandemic will only sharpen the distinction between biblioposers and their maintenance colleagues. Who would want to handle all that virus-contaminated paper if they don’t have to?

Be Careful What You Wish For

As the present pandemic pummels both our health and our economy, an interesting result has been the closure of various “non-essential” businesses and institutions. Included in the expanding list of buildings you can no longer visit are academic libraries. “Not to fear,” claim the Information Scientists who operate these bookless structures, “we can easily deliver our product over the internet.” Indeed they can, and therein is the problem.

People who feel they are getting what they need from a “library” without actually visiting the place are in danger of multiplying at a rate faster than coronavirus victims. Once they reach a critical mass it is only a matter of time before the logical question is asked, “Why are we paying for a vacant building staffed by expensive biblioposers?” If all a university library building is used for is a location for wifi connections and a place for students to order pizza while pretending to study, are there not cheaper options? If college pupils can find what they need to complete assignments by their own internet savvy, why do they need pay the exorbitant salaries of the absent occupants of these deserted physical spaces?

The coronavirus has shown what we can live with, and what we can live without. In truth, we can live without a library building that has no books, and the realization of that fact may be accelerated by the present shutdown.

A Pandering Pandemic

It began as a case of mild obsession about two decades ago, but the virus has spread rapidly across the globe. Nowhere has the impact of the virus been as severe as the United States, especially on college campuses.

No, no...we are not talking about the coronavirus; we are talking about the rapidly accelerating destruction of books in academic libraries, justified by myopic administrators by pointing to their digital daydreams. As the mounting pile of discarded books grows to Everest proportions, these digitally-addled deans continue to raise up the chimera of “digital humanities” to justify the slaughter, all while actual teaching faculty members continue to search for print venues to publish their work. History, literature, and philosophy scholars fully realize (even if the Information Scientists do not) that tenure committees are uninterested in blog citations, choosing instead to count a candidate’s actual publications. Selling the idea that a few posted scans and a scattering of web traffic statistics will be the future of academic work, Biblioposers perform a combination of medicine show theatrics with affected reverence for the academy to distract from their real agenda: the destruction of the codex.