I agree with the monk in Normandy who, in 1170, wrote that “A monastery without a library is like a castle without an armory. Our library is our armory.”
This means we should engage in building it, fortifying it, at every opportunity. When I was in graduate school, I recall one of my professors saying that we should have a line-item in our budget for books. That building a good library is one of the most important things we can do in ministry and for impact.
I tell my own graduate students the same thing - to invest in books. They are our tools. A mechanic has his set of wrenches; a doctor has his stethoscope; a chef has his cookware. Those of us in ministry, or scholarship (and ideally they are joined at the hip), have our books...
The great concern of George Orwell, as conveyed in his novel 1984, was of a day when there might be those who would ban books.
Aldous Huxley’s portrait of the future in Brave New World was more prescient; Huxley feared that there would be no reason to ban a book.
Why?
There would be no one who wanted to read one.
<idle musing>
Interesting that the people in Brave New World substituted drugs and sex for reading. Or, how about Fahrenheit 451? They substituted entertainment for reading. Take your pick, either one describes our culture quite well, doesn't it?
</idle musing>
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