What affects do libraries have in our modern society?
I imagine that the affects libraries can have are undoubtedly diverse and will vary from one person to the next. The affects can depend on who you are, what kind of library the affects are connected with and the conditions of the surrounding community are. A relation with a public library, an academic one or a private one can create different affects that can also vary in intensity.
The libraries which have been a part of my life have had an affect of happiness. I’ve always felt welcome at the libraries I’ve used and visited, they have been a place of comfort, tranquility, excitement and recreation. Places that have opened up new worlds and been a part of my development and life.
Some, like myself, might have lots of positive affects connected to them, other more negative affects and some might have few to none affects in regards to libraries.
Since libraries are places that are open and try to create places and/or spaces where anyone can gain knowledge or find recreation one of their main function should be to strive to create affects of happiness or acceptance for their visitors. To do that without losing a library’s intellectual focus might be difficult to achieve. An academic library should have a positive affect for those who the library serves but might have a negative affect, one of exclusion or rejection, for those who are outside the academy.
Then there are the more personal relations like if a person is dyslexic, or somehow has a negative affect connected with reading, that might transfer over on to the library. So even though libraries might strive to create and have positive affects I think they, unfortunately, they never will for everybody.
That might change with the development of libraries like I have mentioned in earlier reflections, they need to adapt and get with the times to stay relevant. A part of that might lie in the transition of library becoming more a communal space, that hosts information in more forms than the written word and seeks to include and attract more individuals.
-Ásta Þórðardóttir
A 10 years old collage about all the places books, and by extension libraries, have taken me.
archandphil 
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