This commentary is by Liza Ketchum, a resident of Dorset.
This is a copy of the letter I sent to the incoming president of the Vermont State College system:
I am a Vermont author, and a former professor of writing in the master of fine arts program at Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier. I am appalled by the recent announcement that the Vermont State College system plans to close its libraries and rely on digital books.
As a writer, I am distressed on a personal level, since many of my books are historical fiction. I couldn’t have written any of them without access to libraries with deep collections of books — many out of print — for my research. These books include a novel set in Vermont that won the Massachusetts Book Award, as well as a recent historical novel that takes place, in part, in Brattleboro.
In my work, I also rely on libraries for their physical collections of films, old letters, maps, newspapers, and other research material that is unavailable to me — or anyone else — online.
Librarians themselves are crucial to my work, as they are to students in your system. Librarians here in Vermont, as well as in Boston and across the country, helped me track down old letters, maps and diaries that were essential to my nonfiction books about the past, as well as my historical novels. If your students or faculty are researching the past, how will they access this type of material?
My father, Richard Ketchum, was a Vermont writer and historian whose books focused on the American Revolution. With the exception of his last book, “Saratoga,” his books are available only in print.
He was a respected Vermont author, yet your students would not have access to any of his work if they were investigating that period of history. And he is only one of thousands of writers whose work would now be unavailable to your students.
Vermont is home to many authors and illustrators of children’s books. A group of us meet now and then to exchange news and discuss our field. I have looked online, and notice that many of our members have published books that are not available in digital form. This is especially true of illustrated picture books, which are rarely converted to digital formats.
Though these authors have won numerous awards, your students would not have free and easy access to their books.
When I was on the faculty at Vermont College, we gave students lists of required reading, as all faculties do. Will your professors now need to assign books that are available only in digital formats?
How can you possibly support a college system without libraries? Where will students go to share ideas, to find books by accident; books that surprise them, change their thinking, or support a thesis they are investigating?
If I were advising a student graduating from high school now, I would — sadly — encourage them to look elsewhere to follow their dreams.
