For the longest time, waiting rooms were the butt of jokes for their sorry collections of old magazines.
It always seemed a bit mean to me. Your doctor, or you dentist, or your optician had thoughtfully put out something for you to read while you wait. They didn't have to bother, but here you were, looking at the Woman’s Weekly saying, “I was still in high school when this one came out.”
This is probably not going to matter for much longer. I take my seat in the waiting room and what do I do? And what do most people seem to do also? We take out our phone and we’re perfectly content, even though these devices are the death of conversation and all that sort of thing. Another tweet, another selfie, another meme and look at the time flying, ‘the doctor will see you now’.
There are people who maintain that because we are now so connected this way, and because so many homes have the world's store of knowledge right there on the screen in the living room and the kitchen and the bedroom, a library is looking as redundant as a waiting room coffee table.
There are libraries that have received this challenge and have responded with great energy, imagination and vision. It has been really quite marvellous. Far from a swansong, it has more the look of the beginnings of a golden age.
