I’ll admit, when I first read Chapman, every bone in my body screamed to contradict him. So much of what he describes–from the actual meat and potatoes of the article to the purple prose he uses to elevate it to–seems to come from a place of privilege. He describes a library with “sanctified halls” and rows upon rows of books where the value of knowledge can be seen in the “rich bindings and marbled end pages.” I have been in libraries such as these. I’ll admit that, when I had the privilege of walking into the Bodleian library in Oxford, I reveled under the awe-inspiring arches and longed to touch the ancient, protected texts they kept tucked out of the reach of curious visitors. Knowledge should be awe-inspiring and, sometimes, we give it the honor of those kinds of visual cues.

But all of Chapman’s descriptions bucked against the expectations of my most desperate students. He admitted the convenience of being able to create bibliographies in the dorm room or office, but lamented that students weren’t willing to take the time to search through the physical copies in the library, content to be lazy and only go with those papers which had a “full-text” option online. He’s not wrong. I’ve been guilty of this, too. But what about the student with two part-time jobs and a full course load? What about the first-generation college student who isn’t sure where to start when faced with aisles of books bound in generic, canvas covers, but knows how to navigate a search engine better than Chapman admits he does? Wanting ease of access isn’t necessarily lazy, and it’s not like our lazy students would be guaranteed to try harder in a physical location–many of them are likely to grab the first books that seem to match and never go back, regardless of the fit. Lazy will be lazy regardless of the venue.

But even though every example Chapman gave only made me want to argue more, I didn’t like finding myself arguing against libraries. I don’t mean the strange, dream-like versions he seems to be valuing, but the cherished, tired, neighborhood versions I grew up with. The ones that smelled vaguely of dust and stale coffee and maybe a bit of mold. The ones with only a handful of aisles, with books that had been worn down by too many hands, but there were a few comfy chairs set up for anyone able to linger a bit longer. The ones that let me check out 15 books for a two week period and didn’t blink an eye when my mom let me bring them back 3 days short because I’d already sped through my latest collection. I love libraries. I love what they offer to communities. And it’s true that, in print form, students have access to some texts they don’t online…sometimes because they haven’t been translated to digital texts yet, but just as often because their school hasn’t subscribed to get behind that particular paywall. Because, for all that the internet could be an equalizer, it isn’t. Not completely. If knowledge isn’t limited physically, it’s limited financially, parsing out availability to those with wallets large enough to pay for it.

Chapman’s arguments seem weak at best–the protests of someone emotionally lamenting the loss of something that 90% of the world will never experience–and they acted as an interesting introduction to Schauer’s conversation about how women are often rationalized out of tech fields. When the status quo is challenged, its defendants will always come out, tears flowing and arms reaching for the golden days when things were done “properly.” But as digital practices become more common, I don’t want to become complacent in my acceptance…and I don’t want to ignore that some of Chapman’s arguments (however misguided I think they are) still hold weight. Technology is not a panacea. It’s not a replacement. It’s not the herald of a utopia. It’s just a tool, with all the ups and downs and strengths and weaknesses that entails, and it’s Schauer and other men and women like her who are responding (I believe) more effectively. Blind acceptance or irrate denial get us nowhere fast. It’s the rhetorical understanding and the ability to think of the possibilities (expected or not) that will let us get the most out of each step of our technological progress.