Closing libraries is how you burn books without lighting a match.

@aral yes, but do you know about those cute little tiny libraries you can make at your home so neighbours can lend and give a book? Those can do small things for people. We have a few of them around my city 😍

@aral In "I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1" by Victor Klemperer, he notes how first books by Jewish authors were off-limits to people, then how he as a Jew was not allowed to check books out, then not allowed to read them in the Reading Room, then had bits of his personal library made verboten.

If folks keep letting fascists fash, personal libraries become unavailable as well.

@glightly @aral #ConformObeyBeSilentDie

@glightly @aral You mean the Bible... that one was off limit and on Latin only too.... 😏 ✝️

Stop #war ban #religion

@martijn @aral Little Free Libraries are great, sure. We should have more of them.

But they provide almost none of the things that real public libraries do, whether it's books you specifically want/need, reference materials, computers + internet, tax-filing resources, meeting spaces, air conditioning, or so much more.

@el_rubino @aral correct, it was just a little cute bandaid that I shared

@aral
"Closing libraries is how you burn books without lighting a match."
🔥
And it's arguably more effective as well.

@aral I never thought Fahrenheit 451 would get this relevant anymore. https://archive.org/details/fahrenheit-451-1966-696p

@mattias Yep, definitely one that should be on everyone’s reading list.