Most people I’ve met who work in public service positions really don’t know how good they have it. Try keeping your job when it’s based soley on the $$$$ you bring in.

One point that ought to be important is that a city’s cultural capital–including libraries, museums, parks, and other cultural services–makes the city more attractive to people including those considering where to base their businesses. Like the schools in a neighborhood, libraries and museums are part of a package that you use to sell your city above the one down the road. In other words, we aren’t talking about a competition between Library, Inc. and Barnes and Noble; we’re talking about a tool in the competition between East Nowhere and South Wilderness, which are otherwise identical options. Even people who don’t necessarily *use* the library take pride in *having* the library. It may not be terribly logical, but it’s true. People like to brag about how great their towns’ institutions are, and what amazing things they own. (I worked at a major urban library–after the BECPL, which is also a good library–and gave tours to inner city kids who’d never been in the fancy part of the library before, and you could see the visible rise of the shoulders, the eyes getting wider, a certain pride in the step when they realized, “I’m part of this.”)

And yes, children’s literacy programs are very big. Unlike the schools, library programs don’t measure and horsewhip literacy education, but instead try to teach love of books and reading through shared experiences, making books available that kids might not have thought to look for on their own, and creating a pleasant association with books. It’s a luxury to not have the pressure of only reading books your parents can afford to buy.

(I do have one quibble with your presentation, though–upper middle class parents use the library a LOT with their kids. They can afford to buy books, but even being able to afford them doesn’t mean that they want to buy the books for every single report from kindergarten to twelfth grade.)

Since they are heavy users of The Net and get much of their information from there, libraries should find ways to let them know the VALUE of THEIR library’s website by (gasp) selling the library face to face at meetings these folks tend to attend. Homeschooling groups, PTA meetings, Girl/Boy Scouts, Sports Leagues, and even PLACES OF WORSHIP. Yes, face-2-face Selling at churches, that should curl the hair of the twopointopians!