Mini-OPED: Has the Library Become Useless?

By  FORREST ZENG ‘26

It’s no secret that we don’t exactly read for pleasure at Exeter.

Supposedly, it’s impossible to find time to read a book—much less go to the library, check a book out, and read it silently in your dorm. Apparently, that time should be used for spending time with friends, finishing work, or just sleeping. Frankly, recreational book reading at Exeter isn’t a very common thing. 

Now, turn your attention to the colossal brick behemoth that towers over half our campus—the Class of 1945 library—the largest high school library in the world. I’ll say it again: in the world. Our library has a shelf capacity of over 250,000 books, with total access to nearly 400,000 digital and physical volumes. Our library is a book worm’s dream. 

The sad truth? 90 percent of those books will remain untouched for decades—because nobody’s reading them. It’s just those few history monographs and primary source books that perused from time to time, grasped in the hand of some tired upper, researching for their U.S. History library project, 

Our library provides essentially unlimited knowledge, sure—but only when it’s for a class. Otherwise? Most of these books will lay collecting dusty skins. 

Personally, I don’t read recreationally often. But when I do, I try my best to go to the library to retrieve the book. Obviously, there are a few cons to this approach. You can’t write on the pages. It’s a loan. Some of these books are falling apart. And if you forget to return it, you’ll have to pay 50 dollars. 

But to me, there’s a palpable romance to retrieving a book from a library. Something about searching through shelves and spines activates the Dora the Explorer in me and just makes me happy. 

Maybe I’m weird. But the conclusion is clear. From the ancient libraries of Alexandria to our brutalist spaceship of a bookhouse, libraries have served human history as open archives of knowledge. It was in the libraries of old, east and west, that the greatest philosophers changed history. We must not take that value for granted.

What do you think? Have physical libraries become useless? What about at Exeter?