Walking among dead trees and flat screens

Macon Branch, Brooklyn Public Library, Bed-Stuy

The local public library in my neighborhood is a quaint little building called the Macon Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. The building is among the many thousands of Carnegie Libraries built by the famed steel industrialist in the early 20th century. No matter from which direction you approach the building, it's elevations command respect. There was a time in America where people believed places like courthouses, schools, post offices and libraries were places that deserved distinction from other buildings. They gave such buildings Doric columns, broad staircases and other flourishes, harking back to the Greek and Roman ways of building. Our little neighborhood library shares a bit of that. When you see the building, one thinks "herein lies something important."

The building retains a great deal of what Carnegie provided for in his philanthropy. After a recent renovation, the oak paneling and massive fireplace have all been preserved very well. Carefully designed alcoves and great clerestory windows allowing for natural light face south and west, capturing the fullness of the daylight. There is a small mezzanine inside and basement space down below. On the walls, there are pictures of past times in this library, with black-and-white photos showing young African-American faces from the 1940s and 1950s. There is a beautiful Black history room dedicated to one of the library's long-time local neighborhood matrons. Like any public library these days, there are a great deal of computers available for public use. Twenty of them. Recently, even more have arrived in the form of laptops that have been provided with funds from President Obama's Recovery Act. What you will find very little of, ironically, is actual books.

Now before you Kindle-lovers or early-adopters begin calling me a Luddite or a sentimentalist, let me state for the record that I too love my Kindle. Hell, I'm writing here, at the great orange destroyer of news magazines. I'm not advocating here for a resurgence in newspaper reading or paperback buying. But, I will say that something is being lost in our rush toward the digital age. Something intangible, perhaps never to be found again. Perhaps transforming into something new and unknown. Perhaps we will look back on the places where we collected books and think they were as quaint and useless as the monasteries that kept vaults of scrolls before the advent of the printing press and movable type. But even then, much as the art of calligraphy and the divine beauty of illuminated writing were lost in the march of democratic printed book, I feel we are losing things as we say goodbye to the printed word....... ...

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