MISSING AT A STATE-OF-THE-ART PUBLIC LIBRARY

"...old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (from 2 Corinthians 5:17)

Late last week, I stumbled upon the new Walpole Public Library. Our family had lived in the town of Walpole for a few years during the 1980s.. I drove into the parking lot of what HAD been the Walpole Public Library on Common Street. I was stunned to find the Library closed up, dark, and empty. A sign on the door brought me relief to know the Library had not closed but that it had moved. The sign invited patrons to the new facility located on School Street next to the Town Hall. The old Public Library was a typical 1970-ish "modern" medium-sized public library facility. The new public library building is about three times the size of the old one. Wow. It's a totally "state-of-the-art place. Framingham has a very, very nice, large Public Library. As outstanding as the Framingham Library is, this Walpole Library if just as NEW and "Twenty-First Century" as it gets! The thing that amazed me is that there is NO fee to use the library computers for the day as a non-resident. Most local municipalities charge either a dollar or two dollars to use the library for the day as a non-resident, and I think that's reasonable.

Some of you know I fell and was injured earlier this week. I had Thursday, August 2 off and I decided to drive to the Walpole Public Library, go on-line, and to later just sit at a table writing letters in a nice, quite atmosphere. Shuffling around the library facility a couple of times, it struck me that a couple traditional local public library items are missing from this new state-of-the-art library.

The first item that's missing is a shelf filled with telephone directories. Check out the reference room of most eastern Massachusetts public libraries and you'll find a shelf (or shelves) containing a LOT of telephone directories. Most will have all the Verizon phone books for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and perhaps even a few Rhode Island and New Hampshire directories. In Framingham, until around 2009, the phone directories were replaced with new and updated ones about every two or three years. Now, there's a little sign by the directories in Framingham stating they are not going to update the directories any more, and I guess the ones there are now about five or six years old. Yes, today, you can find just about anybody's address and phone number on-line so there seems to be no reason for phone books. And, most businesses gave up Yellow Pages advertising a few years ago to concentrate on their websites, instead.

The other item that's missing is a PAY PHONE. Until probably four or five years ago, the Framingham Public Library had three pay phones in their lobby. They now have just one, but I think it's great they did not get rid of pay phones entirely. As rare as it is, ther ARE still some children and some adults who do NOT have cell phones and who rely on public pay phones where they're out, well, in public! I know of a middle-aged psychologist, for example, who has made the conscious choice to NOT own a cell phone. (His wife's not really happy about that, but he does feel it gives him a measure of freedom, independence, and privacy in this hectic "always ON" world.) I'm not sure if it's the Town of Walpole that made the decision to not have a pay phone at the Library OR if Verizon refused to put one in. The main reason pay phones are disappearing is that Verizon is taking them away (as are the phone carriers in other parts of the country). Verizon argues that is costs money to maintain the phones and to send workers out to collect the coins. In most case, they're just not getting enough usage and are just not cost effective. Even so, there are now all these government programs to provide the poor with free cell phones (NO KIDDING!). I wonder if that government money would be better spent NOT providing free cell phones but rather subsidizing the cost of pay phones.

I know I am probably sounding like Methuselah here, but it seems crazy that every 7-year-old needs to have a cell phone! I got my first cell phone in 1999. and my kids got theirs in 2001. They were all teenagers at the time. I watched a classic 1970s episode of "Columbo" on a nostalgia channel last week. As part of the investigation, Columbo was examining typewriter keys and typewriter ribbons. In those days, home computers were unheard of! And, the idea of everyone having a cordless, small, portable phone was literally something out of Dick Tracy.

I know.

There were no blogs existing in 1974, either. That's true.

Twenty years ago, my father absolutely refused to have cable T.V. and very much disliked and did not understand answering machines and voicemail. It's scary that I'm feeling more like him every day! What will the world be like in 2030? Will I "fit" at all into that world, or will I just not belong. For this 57-year-old there's too much change happening too fast, and it's a little scary!