#libraries are the best

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I love this!

[thereadmind]

Most Beautiful Libraries in the World

[0liver-hope]

if you love books, save a library!

I hear people on Tumblr talk a lot about the importance of libraries; now’s your chance to help save one!

At Vermont State University is a newly merging Uni in so-called North America, pushing together three previously separate universities: Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Technical College.

Just last week, the new VTSU administration sent out an email to faculty, staff and students announcing that all the libraries at each of the 5 campuses contained within these universities would be moving to an ‘all-digital’ model. Librarians will lose their jobs if this plan goes ahead; in fact, librarians were only informed of this change 11 minutes before the email was sent out.

We have come to understand that this means that all physical material will be removed from the library. They seem to want to do other things with the space, such as set up ‘a coffee or smoothie bar’ and determine ‘what students want’ to do with the space. This plan would go into effect on July 1st, 2023.

The fact is, students want to keep the library as it is. Quiet, and full of stacks and stacks of physical books. The administration cannot claim they are listening to students when we have demonstrated, via hundreds of emails and impassioned testimonies in front of the administration at a forum last week, that we hate this plan and oppose it vehemently. And the faculty and staff are with us, and they too have been speaking out. Not only that, the communities that surround these colleges greatly value having access to a research library, particularly in rural Vermont, and are opposing the plan as well, because, as far as I know, they will completely lose access to these resources if everything goes digital.

The image of the books above are what I just checked out today. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed browsing the stacks, in one case (not pictured above) finding a tiny book of Milton’s poetry inscribed with a reader’s name and the year 1865. So many important and precious books like that one are to be found in our library. Each book I checked out hasn’t been checked out for at least 10 years, and that’s one of the administration’s excuses for taking all our books away: that circulation is down, and that, somehow, it costs money to let books sit on a shelf. As many people have rebutted, though, just because books aren’t being checked out doesn’t mean they aren’t being read within the library and, most importantly, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have value.

Below I will post some links to various local news article on this subject as well as one radio broadcast that will probably be able to articulate this situation better than I can.

I’m just so angry and upset about this. I’ve seen students and faculty alike crying about this situation, and an old lady braver than me telling the administration that maybe they should consider lowering their own salaries before taking away our books. I think everyone here feels powerless, because the administration isn’t backing down, despite all our protests, because ultimately their goal is profit and to make sure that this new ‘equitable’ University makes as much money as possible.

At the Castleton forum, the president of the University said he was ‘deeply humiliated’, by the outrage, by the heckling, the ‘throwing of verbal tomatoes’ as I have taken to calling it, by having his and his fellow’s bullshit exposed and questioned.

Please, please, if you care about books, about libraries, about the problems with big tech and the way it continues to invade all our lives, replacing physical experiences with their more hollow, less engaging counterparts; if you care about the interests of the people triumphing over the interests of capital, about students, about education, then please -- help save our books by spreading the word however and wherever you can, by flooding the inboxes of the capitalists below; tell them how you feel about this decision and its larger implications for books and libraries in general! Not so much to convince them that they’re wrong (they already know that and don’t care), but to make going forward with this plan more of a nuisance and a PR nightmare than cancelling it would be.

I don’t know if anyone will read or see this post, but please if you do and you care, reblog, educate yourself on what’s going on, and take action if you can.

A few disclaimers:

Any specifics I mention pertain primarily to what I, as a student at Castleton University, have either heard via word of mouth or seen with my own eyes. I am not officially speaking on behalf of anyone but myself.

The only exception to all the physical materials being removed from the libraries seem to be the books deemed ‘most used’ and some valuable historical collections. This was not clear from the beginning and not yet fully clear in any further specificity.

please try not to use violent rhetoric - as much as I’m not into policing people’s speech and anger, I don’t want this to backfire and I don’t want them to crackdown harder on us or make a big stink about it if they receive those kinds of messages

Email addresses of administration officials responsible for this decision:

VTSU President Grewal: parwinder.grewal@vermontstate.edu

VTSU Provost Atkins: nolan.atkins@northernvermont.edu

VSC Chancellor Zdatny sophie.zdatny@vsc.edu

VSC Board of Trustees Chair: Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson eileen.dickinson@vsc.edu

News articles + broadcast:

https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/vermont-edition/2023-02-10/vermont-state-university-president-on-move-to-all-digital-libraries-changes-in-athletic-programs

https://www.rutlandherald.com/news/local/castleton-community-protests-vtsu-library-cuts/article_100d9539-c6ca-569e-a9b9-ecd6b3cef0ad.html

https://vtdigger.org/2023/02/08/vermont-state-university-to-close-libraries-downgrade-sports-programs/

http://www.castletonspartan.com/2023/02/12/vtsu-library-plan-sparks-outrage-and-emotion/

[vooruitmariek]

The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden

[speakofthedebbie]

public libraries are goated tbh

[kensykaye]

Reminder to check your local library for Be More Chill stuff :)))))))

[princessmacabre]

day 49/100 days of productivity

got up at 7.30am

morning tea & french poetry

meditating (figuring things out)

did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen & cooked lunch

cleaned and tidied my room

took a bath

study work (managed to complete two tasks)

reading (finally started reading ACOTAR)

workout

it’s good to find my back into my work flow…

bisous

xx

[gingerglaze]

this pretty much sums up being a librarian

[luvvyd0vey]

I totally understand that a lot of people get serotonin from just buying books for a physical TBR list but also that must be sooo much money?!

Personally I get the book(s) from the library and if I liked them THEN I’ll buy it so I can reread it and have a physical collection of the books I really enjoyed. I feel like it saves a lot and makes me way more proud with my little book collection.

This also helps support your local library!

It just makes more sense than wasting money on a book you might not like when you could save and buy a special edition of a favourite book or something.

Especially when I see those TikToks where someone turns around every book they haven’t read on their bookshelves and it’s it ends up being MOST of them.

No hate if buying books is your thing though, cause I also feel soo satisfied every time I leave Waterstones with anything, but just a thought I had.

[sentimental-adventurer]

Made a bookmark with my faves on it at geek-fest. The girls who get it, get it!!

🍀📚👊

[supportstudies]

100 Days of Productivity (36/100)

March 12th 2024

LIBRARY HAUL WOOOOO I LOVE THE PUBLIC LIBRARY LETS GOOO WOOOOOOO!!!! They had all of the ms marvel graphic novels and all of fruits basket! I’m gonna go insane theres so many manga on my to read list there lots of good old stuff. I’m a pre 2015 anime/manga supremacist that was the Time the Peak. Today was pretty productive, I got my book club book, worked, made my mom come visit me at work and then we played some of the games when I clocked out- It was a really sweet and nostalgic moment because I used to go to the cec I work at as a kid! it’s changed a lot but we still have the sketchbook machine and so we took a pic on that to put on the fridge. Anyways I’m gonna read before I go sleep time and tomorrow is gonna be cleaning and rest day!

🎧 - Maneater, Daryl Hall & John Oates

Productivity/Self Care

work!!

went to library and got books

finally started reading kenobi I’m so late but we speed run

started reading the first ms marvel graphic novel

checked in with my bestie mary mwah @drp3rky

brought a friend a covid test!! they’re negative!! woo!!!

planned for tomorrow

napped

see you guys tomorrow !

[queermoths]

normalize going to the library. normalize borrowing books and returning them, attending book clubs and open mics. normalize hiding away from the scary parts of the world in little corners of the local public library between the shelves, on armchairs or the floor, reading or knitting or using the computer to print or whatever. normalize exploring the shelves, learning how to navigate the shelves. libraries are so underrated and so breathtaking.

[1mnobodywhoareyou]

Technically, *technically* Inu Yasha was my first fandom. Back in the 2000s when I had exactly zero idea about anything regarding my sexuality and was reading smut on ff.net. But I loved everything I could get my hands on by Takahashi and I'm visiting my new library for the first time and they have THE biggest Ranma 1/2 selection I've ever seen in one place and now I'm rereading it and 🥰. I love this story.

[ariochmagician]

A Library is always a work in progress!

[hobohobgoblim]

Library of things in Reykjavik. The screen reads "the more we share the more we have"

[monstrousproductions]

So there was a problem I had (which I don't want to get into details about), and due to all the drillions of times you've said "go ask a librarian", yesterday when I was in town I asked a librarian where I should look for someone to help with that, and somehow that person was able to parse my normal incoherent mess and give me the name and address of a local thing. And the problem hasn't been SOLVED yet, but that place apparently was the right place to go, judging from how they said "we'll get on that" instead of directing me somewhere else. So yeah, thanks.

Oh, well done for thinking of going there and asking! I hope your problem gets sorted soon xx

And yeah, I think a lot of the time people think libraries are just about books but I find its more accurate to consider them like "community media and information points". They can point you in the right direction even if they don't know themselves!