嘉兴海思外语小讲堂：高中英语阅读

Libraries living on in digital age 我们还需要实体图书馆吗？当然！

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Inside the new Tianjin Binhai Public Library, which became an online hit due to its futuristic design. CFP

导读：天津滨海新区的“天津之眼”图书馆刷屏朋友圈，甚至火到了国外。而在如今的数字化时代里，实体图书馆也依然有其不可替代的魅力。

A new library in Tianjin – Tianjin Binhai Public Library – recently became an online hit. The Daily Mail described it as the “world?s ultimate library”, while the word “breathtaking” was the choice of Newsw eek magazine. One look at the library and you?ll see why. With its futuristic design and walls loaded with books, it?s the dream library of every book lover.

But as the awe continues, there?s a burning question lying in the back of our minds: When physical bookstores are closing down one by one, what makes libraries immune from the wave of digitalization? And do we really still need libraries now we?ve got the internet in our hands?

Reporter Ian Clark has the answer. “Libraries are not declining in importan ce – people are simply changing the way they use them,” he wrote on the Guardian website.

What Clark means is that libraries have shifted from simply being storehouses of books to a medium to help “bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots”, accor ding to website Libraries Are Essential. Since not everyone can afford a smartphone, a tablet or an internet connection, and not everyone has the know-how to search the internet correctly and efficiently, it?s public libraries that make sure that these res ources and technologies are available to a larger group of people.

And one of the pitfalls that come with online materials is that they?re not always reliable. “Google doesn?t tell you what you?re not getting, so people need to evaluate the quality and co mpleteness of what they see on their screens,” Sarah Pritchard, dean of libraries at Northwestern University, told Northwestern Research Magazine. And libraries are usually where that “evaluation” happens.

But all of these practical functions aside, we st ill need the physical space that a library provides. It?s something

that?s called a “third place”, according to the Seattle Times. This is a place in which we can fully concentrate on our study and work without easily getting distracted.

And compared to o ther “third places” like coffee shops, libraries have a “non-commercial nature” that allows you to relax completely.

“Nobody is trying to sell you anything in the library. There is no pressure to buy and there is no judgment of your choices,” Anne Goulding, a professor at Victoria University in New Zealand, wrote on the Newsroom website.

“There are few other spaces that you can just …be? without somebody questioning your presence or your motivation.”