By Michael S. Rosenwald

Where Are the Books?

By Michael S. Rosenwald

The hallmark of public libraries—the printed book, bound by covers and centuries of page-turning—is being shoved aside by digital doppelgangers.

[2] Around the country, libraries are slashing their print collections in favor of e-books, prompting battles between library systems and print purists1print purist指坚持主张以纸张为媒介、用油墨印刷出版传统图书的人。, including not only the prepixel generation but digital natives who represent a sizable portion of the 1.5 billion library visits a year and prefer print for serious reading.

[3] Some of the clashes have been heated. In New York, protesters outside the city’s main branch have shouted:“Save the stacks! Save the stacks!” In Northern Virginia, the Fairfax County library system chief mused that the Friends of the Library were no longer friends—a feud fueled by outrage over a print collection that has shrunk by more than 300,000 books since 2009.The drop in the District is even more dramatic: Nearly 1 million books have vanished since 2009.

公共图书馆的标志——离不开封面包裹、千百年来一页页翻阅的纸质书——正被电子书幽灵推到一边。

[2]在美国各地，图书馆因对电子书青睐有加而削减纸质书的收藏，此举加剧了图书馆和纸质书纯粹主义者的对抗。这些纸质书纯粹主义者中，不仅有出生于像素时代前的人，也有出生于数字时代的。他们占了图书馆每年15亿次访问总量中的很大一部分，都更喜欢在严肃阅读时使用纸质书。

[3]一些冲突已经愈演愈烈。在纽约，抗议者就在图书馆主要分馆前大叫：“拯救书架！拯救书架！”在北弗吉尼亚，费尔法克斯县图书馆负责人说，图书馆之友不再友好了——2009年以来，印刷版藏书减少了30多万册，这一情况引起的公愤加剧了原本就有的不和。哥伦比亚特区纸质书的下降更加明显：2009年以来，消失了将近100万册。

“To say Gutenberg2谷登堡，德国活版印刷发明人。此处代指传统印刷出版的纸质书。’s days are over is a terrible mistake,” said Dennis Hays, a former U.S. ambassador and chairman of Fairfax Library Advocates, a group of residents at war with library officials.“Nothing can take the place of a book.”

[4] Librarians are feeling the heat.

“We’re caught between two worlds,”said Darrell Batson, director of the Frederick County Public Libraries system in Maryland, where the print collection has fallen 20 percent since 2009. “But libraries have to evolve or die. We’re probably the classic example of Darwinism.”

[5] The evolution of information flow has forced their hands, librarians say. Just as books advanced from slabs of parchment to paperbacks, they are transforming again, from paper to pixels3pixel像素。此处代指以数字化形式出版的电子书。. With Plato only a download away, libraries have lost their monopoly on knowledge.

[6] In evolving, librarians are steering tight acquisition budgets to e-books, which are more expensive than print because, among other reasons, publishers fear large databases of free e-books will hurt their business. E-book spending has grown from 1 percent of library budgets to 7 percent, according to a Library Journal survey. One library in San Antonio went much further, opening a bookless, all-digital branch called BiblioTech.

“说什么纸质书的时代结束了，简直荒谬透顶。”美国前大使、费尔法克斯图书馆拥趸协会主席丹尼斯·海斯说，“没有任何东西能替代书籍。”该协会由当地居民组成，与图书馆系统的官员争吵不休。

[4]图书馆工作人员感受到论争的白热化。

“我们夹在两个世界之间。”马里兰州弗雷德里克县公共图书馆总监达内尔·巴特森说，“但是图书馆不进步便消亡。很可能我们就是达尔文进化论的范例。……