Peter Middleton

Libraries will soon be obsolete.

So declared the head of the global thinktank the RAND corporation in 1979. 2019 was marked out as a year in which the last library would close its doors. Technology was fast-changing and taking over, so went the argument, and the attention-span of a multi-media-devouring public would have no time any more for reading, no need any more for libraries, no need, even, for books.

It’s certainly fair to say that the so-called ‘assault on our attention-span’ has only increased in recent years with the ubiquity of smartphones, Netflix, and all else that the technological world throws at us and which we, in turn, eagerly consume. A study in 2016 concluded that we touch our mobile phones a staggering 2,617 times a day, whilst meanwhile Amazon’s Alexa answers over 500 million questions a day from information-seeking customers around the world. What time, then, is there for books? What need, therefore, is there for libraries?

(Photo: Dreamstime/TNS)

The Future for Libraries

2019 has of course been and gone and the predicted demise of Libraries has, thankfully, not come to pass. In fact, in 2020 there were over 2.6 million libraries worldwide and, as noted in Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen’s excellent book The Library: A Fragile History there are new libraries being created and built all the time. Pettegree and der Weduwen point to the new national libary of Copenhagen (the Black Diamond), the new Latvian national library in Riga, and a newly-regenerated central library in Manchester, one of the oldest public libraries in England. These are significant – and hugely costly – endeavours, so why invest so heavily in libraries in the 21st Century if, as some have argued, they are no longer necessary, mere relics of a bygone era?

The Royal Library- The Black Diamond- Copenhagen

Reimagining Libraries for the Modern Age

Joining Oswestry School as Headmaster in January 2022, I was surprised- and saddened- to learn that this ancient school whose origin story dates back over 600 years to its foundation in 1407, no longer had a library. With a strong history and heritage of scholarship, curiosity and discovery, the school counts amongst its alumni individuals who played a key role in the expansion of libraries both in the UK and worldwide, such as Thomas Bray who in 1698 established the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK), a movement that focused on providing library collections for parish churches for the benefit of rural communities, libraries which, by the time of his death, numbered over 140.

As an English graduate, books and reading have always- unsurprisingly- been a passion throughout my life, but as an educationalist I would likewise strongly argue that, even in the digital age, books, reading and libraries remain important. They are, in fact, more important now than ever before. Not just important, but essential.

My immediate priority in 2022 therefore quickly focused on restoring once again the Library to the architectural and academic heart of our school. Designed in collaboration with a creative team of pupils, staff and an external team from Taskspace, we set about re-imaging a vacant space within the old part of the school into a contemporary Library space for reading, reflection, discourse and debate. Blending modern design with nods to our ancient heritage, we sought to create an inspiring, engaging and dynamic space that would become a hub and a haven within the school, encouraging curiosity, collaborative working and independent study alongside, of course, a love of reading.

Opening the doors to the library at the start of the new term and calendar year, the space has quickly become a treasured space with pupils flocking in large numbers at break, lunchtimes, and during study periods. It’s a welcoming space, and there’s a purposeful but relaxed atmosphere, an atmosphere that is unique and distinct on campus.

Writing recently in The Guardian, Moira Donegan described libraries as providing an “edifying sanctuary for thought and curiosity”, sanctuaries that are perhaps needed now more than ever before given the frenetic pace of modern living. Certainly, if our experience is anything to go by, the Library can- and should- be central to the school experience for the 21st Century pupil.

Survival Through the Ages

Since its earliest days, the Library has been under threat. The Library has survived the dissolution of the monasteries during the Reformation during which time large collections were plundered, stolen, or burned. The Library has survived man-made destruction, most notably the devastating destruction experienced in the two world wars where many libraries and their collections were either collateral or deliberately destroyed, and the Library has likewise survived natural disaster, such as the loss of the Library of King John V- one of the finest collections in Europe- in the earthquake that hit Portugal in 1755.

The Louvain University Library, one of the oldest and most distinguished in Europe, consumed by fire during the First World War and again reduced to ashes during the Second World War with the loss of a million books.

The greatest threat to Libraries in the 21st Century might well be the digital distractions that all of us are susceptible to, but there is no reason why the contemporary library can’t go hand in hand with a progressive approach to technology and the benefits that come with it. Books and reading, however, should always have a place in the experience of those youngsters within our care, and libraries, too, should be a part of their lives.

Long Live the Library

In their wonderful picture essay ‘Why We Need Libraries’, Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell declare their hope that “we can give our children a world in which they will read, and be read to, and imagine, and understand.” The Library is the sanctuary in which imagination can take flight, where ideas can be shared, and where the bustle and busyness of daily life can be exchanged for the bliss of a different kind of pace. As the writer Jorge Luis Borges mused, “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

Judging by the effusive comments I am hearing on a daily basis from my pupils, the Library here at Oswestry School was an investment well worth making and is a little slice of paradise at the heart of our campus.

So are libraries a relic of the past? Definitely not. Are they necessary? Absolutely.

Contrary to predictions of its demise and extinction, the Library continues to have a place in 21st century society. We enter a new era for the Library, turning the page to a new chapter in its long and enthralling story. Far from dead, in the right hands and with imagination, creativity and passion, it is very much alive and its heart beating strong.

Long live the Library!