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Thinking about Complex Media
Why should a public library collect videos when there are all those books? It makes no more sense for a public library to circulate movies on DVD than it does to circulate popular fiction. It makes no more sense to have selected TV series in the collection than it does to have novels in series, particularly genre series. But it also makes no less sense.
I still don't buy assertions about the "post-literate generation" or Gregory Ulmer's comment in Teletheory (Routledge, 1989), "Everything wants to be television." Books are the heart of every good public library collection and the core of the liberal arts and humanities in academic libraries. TV and movies do not and will not replace books. But video tells some stories better than books, and frequently does so in ways that serve library missions.
Snobbery and misunderstanding
If you're even more of a book snob than I am, consider this: Offering the works of William Shakespeare and not offering DVDs of his plays (and such related works as Kiss Me Kate, West Side Story, and a certain episode of Moonlighting) serves the Bard and your...