Tom Mole

Although there exist many books on the subject of the value of books and libraries, this small tome yet manages to contribute a bit of something new. Unlike many of those other authors, Mole builds up from his thoughts about the book, and a book, toward further reflections on books in the aggregate, libraries: "when gathered together in large numbers, books make a kind of argument that's different from the argument you find spelled out in their pages."

There is sui generis value to libraries that is not reducible to the books, so we are not surprised to hear that "Students want to work alongside those endless shelves, even if they can access the texts they need on their laptops." Because "I experience libraries and bookshops as spaces of enormous potential, which invite me to imagine new avenues of intellectual exploration, new pathways of reading pleasure," intellectual labor happens easier and more successfully in libraries, just by being there, amidst the books, even without pulling a single one from the shelf.… (meer)