Anyone living in the 21st century needs to understand how to find and utilize the vast amount of information that is stored online. Libraries play a crucial role in making this information available to us, yet are at risk.

It’s easy to forget just how important libraries are in an era of Google and Amazon where we all have the ability to access information with greater ease and a more rapid pace than ever before. However, the question still remains: why should we put tax dollars towards libraries when our readers are constantly getting the majority of their research from the internet?

Libraries are more than just community centers, just as librarians do more than answer questions you could easily ask your Smartphone. Libraries provide the skills and necessary knowledge in order to succeed in our democracy.

The knowledge that libraries offer as the lifeline for an informed and engaged republic. Since the rise of the public library system starting in the late nineteenth century America, “libraries have been the place where any citizen could go to pursue his or her own interests, free of cost,” according to Alternet.

If the government were to stop funding libraries and their existence altogether, their disappearance would affect the way future generations will be educated.

Libraries help to capture a piece of history that is often too easily forgotten. People are forgetting the satisfaction of walking through shelves and stacks to find their book and physically hold it in their hands. To think there are now generations of children growing up without ever going to their public library is unacceptable.

Not only do libraries offer access to information, but there is a community within them. People meet and bond over common interests to form connections, whether it be a love for books or learning. The social atmosphere of libraries are welcoming to all.

There is value in them because there is no discrimination against anyone; regardless of economic status, gender, sexual orientation or race, they offer a safe place and resources to everyone.

Many often do not realize the number of resources provided at libraries, books being the minimum. There is free internet, many technologies, communicative devices, archived records and tapes and many more benefits offered to the public free of charge. Removing libraries eliminates a source for those in need to get common resources.

There are ways to preserve the life of libraries and, in order for them to continue to survive in the modern world, libraries need to make the transition to the digital future. This can be done by digitalizing print material while continuing to play the role as a public space of information in the U.S. democracy as they have been for hundreds of years.

Renovating and updating libraries will revive them and draw in younger generations. Children growing up in today’s society will look forward to visiting their local libraries. Rather than being a place of boredom and outdated supplies, libraries can become a home for ideas, community and the future again.