▶ Your Answer :
With the proliferation of
high-tech media, some people hold that the public libraries would be rendered
obsolete if they do not offer software, videos or DVDs to their users while other
assert it’s only a waste of limited resources and the libraries should offer
books only.
High-tech media is, in many
ways, indeed superior to the books in terms of entertainment, attraction, and
functionality. For instance, videos and DVDs function as a visual means to
assist people to have a first-hand experience even though those people have not
physically visited or seen the objects which are introduced in the books. Also,
despite the audio-visual equipment would be prohibitive to install, the capital
cost would be lowered by appealing to a sizable number of users.
More importantly, software
could assist the library goers to access the Internet to update their knowledge
on a daily basis; in contrast, books typically take multiple months to be published,
which in turn render their contents outdated to some extent. In addition, upon
learning that the computer literacy has become an essential skill recently,
public libraries should take on the responsibility to educate its users how to
operate a computer.
Furthermore, it is a common
practice for most public libraries to share their resources via the Internet.
In this way, even if one book of interest cannot be found in one library, the
borrower still could locate the book from other libraries and then request the
librarians to transfer the book to that particular library.
In conclusion, public
libraries would benefit in multiple ways if they are equipped with the
high-tech media. |