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The Dead Library is up there, silent, like an unexplored forest or an unvisited old graveyard.

August 20, 2008 - 3:13pm — Blake

How Dumb Can You Get?:

The spines of the books, instead of reminding me of trees in a forest, as they often do, suddenly began to look like tombstones. Each date on a book spine recorded the death of a book. I was standing in the middle of The Dead Library. Book readng was over.

(Review of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future [Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30] )

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August 20, 2008 - 3:55pm — Chuck

advantages of LISNews

If I read the same article again and again and again and again does that mean I work in the Library of Babel?

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August 21, 2008 - 5:06am — opaqueentity

Dumbness isn't a problem

All you do is change the level of what is a 'normal' level of reading and you automatically mark everyone who was subnormal before as clever therefore making your country seem the smartest in the world!
No one uses the same standards across countries and especially not over time so you can't make a fair comparison. You just know when you see the stupid people ;)

Students not knowing what 'coloured entrance' means doesn't mean they don't read enough, it just means they've not watched the right program on the History channel :P

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August 21, 2008 - 2:33pm — LibrariAnon (not verified)

Communication without language

I'm impressed that so many young people can keep up e-mail correspondence without the ability to read or write.

I'm also impressed that college degrees are being handed out for watching YouTube.

Seriously, though, I'd like to see how many 30+ people from different walks of life can pick out Iraq on an unlabeled map (which is what they asked the youngsters to do). A little bit of information left out of the story can change it significantly.

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