Huffington Post on Library Woes

Art Brodsky's article is titled "Our Public Library Lifeline Is Fraying. We'll Be Sorry When it Snaps" and I couldn't agree more. And yes, I'm very biased towards this as I have an eminent stake in the future of libraries.

Five years ago I was at a crossroads. I had left publishing, a career I loved, to work as a computer programmer. This decision was purely financial. In 2000, my wife as a high school teacher made almost double what I made as an editor. We would never have a home, or a family, or savings, or all sorts of things if I continued working in publishing. Needless to say, but I made good money as a programmer.

But I hated it.

Many people like programming. There are many who even have a passion for it. I'm not one of them. I needed to get out. This put me at my crossroad.

Moving to a different programming job wouldn't be sufficient. It wasn't the work, it was the career. It and I did not match. Going back to publishing was an option, but there was the financial concern. So, I needed to find a career where I could have passion AND make a decent wage. I chose librarianship.

I love books. I love reading. Yes, a library is more than that, but I don't know if you can dislike books and make it as a librarian. More than liking books, I had worked on books. I knew that side of the business which is something many (if not most) librarians don't have. I also had a background in programming, which in these days, is a great benefit to have as a librarian as more and more things become electronic/digital/online/etc. these days. Plus, the pay was pretty good.

Don't laugh. My first job as a full-time librarian earned almost double what my last job as an editor did. Whether that says more for the dire state of publishing salaries or the implied lucrativeness of being a librarian, I don't know. Regardless, once the decision was made, it was time to go back to school, earn my Master's in Library Science (no matter what my alma mater thinks about the word 'library'), and move onto a new career.

I didn't come to libraries by accident. I didn't come to libraries because I had previous experience working in one (in fact, that lack of experience may be a benefit for me in the long run). I didn't come to libraries because I went to library school straight out of college. I chose to be a librarian. It's who I am. No matter what accolades I may earn (that's not me in the photo), I will always think of myself as a librarian first, everything else second.

That's why I think this article is great. Of course, being on the Huffington Post means that only a certain group of people will see it. And it's also written because this is National Library Week. On any other week I doubt that Mr. Brodsky--no matter his love and devotion to libraries--would write this. Even if he did, would Huffington Post run it on a different week? Probably not.

One of the big reasons is the prevailing mentality that everything is online. Even pro-library people (and librarians) have this opinion that everything is online. Brodsky writes (emphasis mine):

But it would be a mistake to say that the Internet replaces libraries. It doesn't. It's an adjunct. More than one budget officer has said that people don't need libraries because they can go online. First, many people can't go online due to their economic circumstances. Second, librarians help to guide research. A simple online search will not always achieve desired results, as anyone who does this well knows. And libraries still have those quaint old things called books, many of which aren't online. The printed medium still has a lot of attraction for many, from the youngest readers whose parents check out armloads of picture books, to the serious readers and researchers who realize there is more to find than what's online.

Just as important, just because you can go online and use Google, doesn't mean you can actually write a good search query, or interpret your search results with any alacrity. That's where we come in. Sure, I still get people calling for phone numbers and hours of businesses, but more often the reference questions are more complicated and require someone with some searching skill and tenacity to find the answer.

I'll close the same way the article does (again, emphasis mine):

No less an authority than Keith Richards put it best in his forthcoming autobiography: "When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equaliser."

Hey, We're Still Alive Over Here!

It's been a while since I've posted here. I've been busy with two library jobs, trying to get the next issue of the zine ready, and preparing for the World Fantasy Convention that this hasn't been my top priority. There's been a lot of stuff going on that I have thoughts on. Of course, at this point the time has passed for me to make relevant posts about it (the whole librarian as a calling thing is dead in the water now...), but today I read something from one of my favorite blogs, The Annoyed Librarian, that has prompted me to write.

Now, the AL (as she calls herself) tends to annoy/anger me as I read her posts, but I think I need that. Just like how Library Revolution makes me mad some times, the AL writes some things that get my hackles up. She calls things as they are. And I think librarians need someone to stand up and call their bullshit "bullshit" now and again. (I don't believe she'd curse, that's my own failing)

From today (she's discussing outsourcing library services):

This debate is similar to all the guff about how we have to bend over and grab our ankles to make libraries "relevant" to people. Libraries are relevant or they're not. The people care, or they don't. If people don't want what libraries provide, then libraries will go away, but that's more of a problem for the librarians than it is for the people. What if all "information" was available for free online, search engines had perfected search, "information literacy" was universal, and computers and Internet access were available to all? If that happens, public libraries will probably be unnecessary for the most part. Is that a problem for the people, or for the librarians? Even now it's true for many people. Access to information is cheap. We talk about the "digital divide," but I wonder how many people on the other side of the digital divide can afford televisions and cable.

and:

If librarians were interested only in user satisfaction, they wouldn't complain about library outsourcing in such a knee-jerk manner. Librarians are interested in librarians, except, of course, when they're not.

I mean, how great is that? But I want you to go back and think about this statement again:

Libraries are relevant or they're not.

Yes, there are things you can do to make the library more prominent in the community, there are things you can do to enhance the user experience (my library now has downloadable movies, sweet!), but there's little you can do to make the library more relevant.

There's only so much control you have over what someone else thinks is relevant. At one point in my life guitars and music shops were the only relevant thing. At another point it was skateboarding. I think most people who know me now would laugh a little to hear those two statements. More pertinent to this discussion, even though I work in a library now, and would feel comfortable to say that librarianship is a calling for me, from when I left high school to when I started my MLIS coursework (a span of 1989 - 2004) I entered a library fewer than ten times. The library was not relevant to me.

These days, I could not live without the library. If for nothing more than the fact that I no longer buy hundreds of books a year. And again, for that alone I love being part of a big consortium. There are few books that I am looking for that I cannot get through the consortium. I am not able to use much of the library's programming. This is equal parts my lack of time and the lack of convenience of getting to the library. But is the library relevant to me? As an employee, of course. As a patron...I don't know. If I wasn't in the library a few times a month (I'm part-time at the public gig) I don't know how much I'd use it. Certainly not the branch I work at; there are two closer to me.

I do think that libraries should do a better job of marketing their services to their community. And perhaps they need to hire someone to do that for them. I'm not convinced that librarians know what their community wants, or where their community goes/is, to be able to market properly. Will better marketing make libraries relevant? That's up to the patron. Not to us.