Perché in futuro avremo bisogno delle biblioteche

Con un discorso tenuto al Barbican Centre di Londra, Neil Gaman ha spiegato perché abbiamo bisogno delle biblioteche. Che non sono obsolete, e non sono solamente una raccolta di libri disposti su delle mensole. Il futuro delle biblioteche non ha che fare tanto coi libri quanto con l’informazione; la necessità — fra le altre cose — di avere un luogo che insegni a selezionare quella buona da quella cattiva e che al contempo la renda accessibile gratuitamente a chiunque, senza differenze:

I worry that here in the 21st century people misunderstand what libraries are and the purpose of them. If you perceive a library as a shelf of books, it may seem antiquated or outdated in a world in which most books in print exist digitally. But that is to miss the point fundamentally. I think it has to do with nature of information. Information has value, and the right information has enormous value. […] A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information. And mental health information. It’s a community space. It’s a place of safety, a haven from the world. It’s a place with librarians in it. What the libraries of the future will be like is something we should be imagining now.

Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood.