tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1267958436249685584.post-24160630721160034822008-04-15T11:55:00.000-07:002008-04-15T12:09:14.601-07:00<a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_Se2CEhZjQyo/SAT89fXVYWI/AAAAAAAAAU0/KzFfUMxnSAQ/s1600-h/vogue+display.jpg"></a><br /><div><a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_Se2CEhZjQyo/SAT8yfXVYVI/AAAAAAAAAUs/FMOUtrdOr3Y/s1600-h/bob+for+blog.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5189550614980682066" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_Se2CEhZjQyo/SAT8yfXVYVI/AAAAAAAAAUs/FMOUtrdOr3Y/s320/bob+for+blog.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div>It's National Library Week, something you can read all about at the <a href="http://www.ala.org/ala/pio/natlibraryweek/nlw.cfm">American Library Association website</a> -- or check out a video from Library Week Chair Julie Andrews at the <a href="http://www.keyslibraries.org/">Monroe County Public Library's site</a>. We're celebrating all this week at the FKCC library, starting with a talk Monday from Key West resident and esteemed writer Robert Richardson. Richardson recently won the prestigious Bancroft Prize for his biography of William James. He talked about libraries, his experience doing research in them, the experience of others (including the guy who found notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci that had been lost for 500 years but had been hiding out unnoticed in a library).<br />Richardson also addressed the much-debated question of whether, in the age of Google, libraries are still necessary. He says they are. He's no Luddite: Google is wonderful for many things, he said, but in some cases you can't beat good old Bartlett's Familiar Quotations or other printed reference material. Plus there's the physical experience of reading and consulting a printed book. This is very different from reading on screen -- and in some cases it's actually easier to find information in a book. Richardson said computers are actually a throwback in reading technology to the scroll -- you read in order -- while books are codexes.<br />Tomorrow (Wednesday) at 11 a.m. is our first annual student poetry reading and at 6 p.m. art students will show us their digital book projects. Read on!</div></div><br /><p></p>Nancy Klingenerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16325228975944130602noreply@blogger.com