J’ai trouvé ceci dans le blog d’Arnold Kling, un économiste de la famille des Autichiens (disciple de Hayek et Mises, en général, plutôt réactionnaires) :
« On Friday I went to my alma mater, Swarthmore College, to attend a memorial service for Bernard Saffran. I allowed time for traffic, so I arrived on campus almost an hour early. I was struck by the large number of new buildings. It made me think that Swarthmore is the most over-capitalized entity in the country.
« It was a bitter January day, so I went into the library to escape the cold. The few students who were there were working on computers, either the library's or their own laptops.
« I then wandered to the "honors reserve" section of the library, where books for junior and senior seminars are kept. They seemed rather old and threadbare. I pulled a few off the shelf, and I did not find any with a copyright date after 1992. The economics books were not classics, just books from the 1960's through the 1980's, almost all of them forgettable.
« I felt a pang of pity for the college, and this pathetic book collection. Then I turned around, once again seeing the fancy computers, and remembered the new buildings. It struck me that in 20 minutes of walking around the campus and 20 minutes in the library, I had seen more buildings that had been built than books that had been purchased in the past 15 years. Poverty amid plenty. »
Cela m’a rappelé deux expériences d’il y a une dizaine d’années. La première à la bibliothèque d’HEC. J’emprunte The function of the executives de Chester Barnard, l’un des rares chefs-d’œuvre de la théorie du management : il n’avait pas été emprunté depuis 1972. La seconde à la bibliothèque du CNAM à Paris. Je demande un livre de Franck Gilbreth, le seul qui ait été, si je me souviens bien, traduit en français. L’exemplaire que l’on me donne, publié dans les années 30, n’avait jamais été découpé !
Je ne sais qu’en conclure, mais ce texte et ces réminiscences m’ont rendu mélancolique.
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