Twisting Topeka Read Online Free

far
it had been mostly academic and medical facilities, and I had to
agree that it made sense, there, with the most current, accurate
information being all digital anyway. The few public libraries that
had gone bookless reminded me of the computer labs from my
undergrad days, or of Apple stores: rows of LCD screens instead of
rows of books, clean sight lines, the hum of devices and clicking
of keys. They looked like nice places to study, but they didn’t
quite look like libraries, to me.
    But Kansas was completely bankrupt.
Library funding had been slashed big time, and a lot of librarians
were let go. Topeka’s library had to pick between digital or print,
and decided that providing technology to bridge the digital divide
was more important than retaining the traditional stacks. I was a
technology advocate, and I was as stuck to my smart phone as anyone
else, but I hated the idea of getting rid of print
completely.
    I took to Facebook and Twitter to get
folks interested enough to speak out, and I tried my best to
convince the board to reconsider a hybrid collection. I cited
studies showing that our brains have a different response to words
in print, as opposed to words flashed across the glowing screen,
and I argued for preservation in print, as an option, just in case
digital access failed somehow. There was nothing I could do,
though. The money just wasn’t there, and hard choices had to be
made.
    The Topeka & Shawnee County Public
Library became bookless back in 2026, and survived the budget cuts,
and thrived as a house of tech-mages and a hub for community
engagement—and it turned out that I loved my job just as much as I
had before. I helped people learn how to use the newest tech, gave
advice on cover letters and resumes, hosted book discussions, and
recommended great reads. I was still a librarian.
    I missed the books, though. I
remembered walking down the aisles, trailing the tips of my fingers
along the spines, and checking out stacks of new books to carry
home in a tote bag. I missed the quiet feeling of being surrounded
by books in the stacks.
    It turned out that our library was on
the cutting edge of things to come. Print went by the wayside in
other libraries and in retail faster than anyone had predicted it
would, despite upswings in print sales here and there. Digital was
just so easy, and took up so much less space. That’s when I truly
became a collector, a gatherer. I rescued as many books as I could,
from yard sales and thrift stores, and the big chains and used book
stores, before they closed for good. I saved a lot of the books
that the library discarded, too, buying them on the cheap from the
library bookstore. I invested in built-in, floor to ceiling
shelves, and I finally spent some time weeding and organizing my
collection. My library.
    I’m ready now, for whatever finally
brings down the grid. I’m not wishing for a technology crash or a
return to simpler days, truly. I never want to see my community
turned upside down, or my friends and neighbors struggling. But I
feel it coming, anyway, an inevitable collapse that has nothing to
do with my wishes.
    Shelves full of colorful covers and
flippable pages greet me when I enter my home. Standing in my
living room, I close my eyes and breathe in the familiar smell of
paper and ink, and I feel hopeful. I know I’m not the only one who
held on to the past. There are others out there like me, keepers of
the printed word, and we have something to share. Each of us, with
our own ark of books, possess something that will connect people
back to the world that was lost.
     

Tovarishch
O’Sullivan
    Craig Paschang
     
    The cold winter wind whipped through
Grigory O’Sullivan’s thick red beard as he darted from the tramway.
He wouldn’t be out at this hour or in this weather on a normal
evening. But duty called; the Party came first.
    The city center was mostly dark; a
café ahead on the right was still inhabited, casting a pale warm
wedge of light in