Dear Commons Community,

This piece was passed on to me by colleague, Jack Hammond, at Hunter College.  I join Jack in giving a shout-out for our librarians, past and present, who have helped and continue to help so many of us with our ventures into reading.

Tony

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The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Reader

By COLIN ROBINSON

Published: January 4, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/opinion/sunday/the-loneliness-of-the-long-distance-reader.html

This was especially shocking:

Librarians, described by the novelist Richard Powers as “gas attendant[s] of the mind,” saw a national decrease in their numbers of nearly 100,000 over the two decades to 2009. Two-thirds of public libraries reported flat or decreasing budgets in 2012.

Jack