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The Library Services of Babel

Luis Enrique Alas, student of Degree in Literature and Creative Writing, invites us to fill our Library Services with books and knowledge and not get lost in the networks of digital technologies.

It is well known that it is thanks to the Library Services of a few illustrious people that we can now enjoy the classics. It may seem that writing now in defence of personal libraries, and even more so in a magazine with a loyal readership, may seem worthless. However, I think it is important to give some airing to this topic, to give airing to Library Services.

First of all, I want you to imagine your Library Services. Maybe you have it in front of you or maybe you are in it, so it is enough for me to visualise it. You will agree with me that it is a place or space where you have arranged, more or less successfully, the books you will read or have read. You may even be so manic... ahem, as to have made a list with the titles divided into subject, language and submateria and you have even written a small grade about each one you have read.

Perhaps the most obvious thing about this maja Library Services is that you have built it to preserve your readings. I think this is natural. We've seen how the ancients did it too and how useful it has been result. It is quite obvious that the reason we keep our books is because we are interested in reading them. Maybe in your Library Services - I forgot to say it before, I'm sorry - you have a pile of books that keeps growing and growing and that you think you'll never be able to reduce to zero... In any case, you keep them.

I hear some commentary there in the background, yes, there, from the pocket or from a desire for progress. I hear that when it comes to preserving content, it is much cheaper and more efficient to do it from a computer. I hear, too, that there are now devices in which you can carry thousands of books, and besides, the battery lasts for weeks, not a day. However, I think you've guessed that I disagree with this. Surely it has happened to you that you have seen a folder on your computer where you have perhaps your doctoral thesis , the research for the cure of a disease and that by carelessness you make a right click, delete, sure, of course, deleted forever.

Let's face it, we live in a world where there is too much information in a few bits - sorry, bits, no longer italicised. There is now a Babel of information that is impossible to navigate. It is essential, then, to understand Library Services as a space that transcends the usefulness of keeping books. 

Moreover, we agree that our current culture emphasises the image we present to the world. The Library Services is at its best for this. People who wear "unique and different" clothes have the same "unique and different" clothes as everyone else, but no two libraries are identical. Either because the titles are not the same, because they are in a different order, because the copies have a nice dedication or a coffee stain or the shelves are decorated. There is no better way to assert your identity than on a Library Services.

Finally, let's be honest, did you really read the PDF that your father handed you saying "My son, read this book, you'll enjoy it"? Because you might have downloaded it and read a few pages, but it has nothing to do with the book he gave you in your hand. Or think about it, wasn't that book that your friend thought of giving you a nice gift? So, no more excuses and fill your Library Services. No more excuses and make a room in your home for a Library Services. Out with the excuses and buy lots of books to lend me.
 

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