Will newspapers disappear?

The announcement today that the Christian Science Monitor will no longer publish a print edition on weekdays may not touch children's library services very closely, but it does have an effect. For many years this newspaper has provided information that librarians could rely on for objective news about many topics. No youngster or high school student was going to run into a scandal story or racy picture while searching through the Monitor either online or in print. Most newspaper reference searches have already shifted to the online versions of papers, but the print source remained a backup for many libraries. The decline and eventual disappearance, as predicted by many people, of our newspapers will inevitably lead to greater dependence on the Internet, on the expensive machine that access online sources, and on the basic electricity and high-speed connections we have come to rely on. Most Americans take these utilities for granted, but in rural areas in the country there are still patches of non-connectivity, and there are still homes where electricity is not always certain and reliable. As librarians we mourn the loss of one more source of news we can offer our patrons. We are moving on, but let's be sure the people we serve are not being left behind.