With all its library levy controversy, Seattle has just been a-hoppin’ with library excitement. Now that the library levy has passed instead of broken, it’s time the Seattle public library gave some serious thought to adapting the library for the future. Fortunately for the library leaders of Seattle, they have just the leader they need, as shown in this this op-ed by a 22-year-old son of a retired librarian. Library knowledge runs in the family, I guess. According to him, nobody comes to the library to read books, so libraries should get rid of the books. The “crusty books” should all be sent off-site somewhere and shipped in for library patrons, who would browse and select them using a redesigned OPAC that would “make browsing a more pleasant experience.” I don’t have any trouble browsing via an OPAC, but then again I’m a librarian. This makes some kind of sense if you assume that everyone would stay home browsing books via a computer, select ...
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It’s so nice to get comments from admiring fans, like the admiring fan last week who wrote, “Your elitist attitude betrays you.” No, I might say in response, the fact that you use “elitist” as a term of abuse betrays you. So there! It’s a meaningless term of abuse that merely indicates that the person using it doesn’t have the same standards about the same things as the person it is being used about. Then again, the world is run by elites, so maybe it’s time to just get used to it. My elitist attitude was betraying me when I questioned whether libraries should become food kitchens, which apparently meant that I hadn’t “much experience working in either major urban areas or in rural ones.” Because, um, that’s just what libraries do in urban and rural areas, as opposed to the posh suburbs where I also don’t work in public libraries. My argument was twofold, both that it was bad for libraries to foist yet another nonlibrary task on them, ...
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A kind reader sent me a couple of articles on libraries that were providing lunches for children during the summer. Kids who are eligible for free lunches during the school year could come to libraries in Oakland or DC and get lunch there. I’m assuming there are programs like this all across the country, and that the poor children wouldn’t have to trek to the east or west coast just to get a free lunch. Hardly worth the trouble. The kind reader questioned whether this kind of thing was further eroding the mission of libraries.It’s a good question. It’s a better question when considered in the light of another article right here in LJ: Libraries Could Double as Post Offices. That article discussed how libraries in places so rinky-dink that their post offices are closing could replace some of the post office services by using the USPS’s Village Post Office Program. The title of the article is the odd thing about it. Libraries could double? At this ...
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An article in the Huffington Post reports that almost half of Washington DC’s public schools will open without a librarian. 58 of 124 schools will be librarianless, 24 more than last year. One group protesting the lack of librarians complains that the lack of librarians at the poorer schools creates an unfair advantage. Unlike one school in Chevy Chase, the parents in the poor schools can’t come up with $10,000 a year for the school library. “Schools should be an equalizer,” he said, not a “have-and-have-not divide.” When it comes to American schools, “should be” and “are” are very far apart. The American Association of School Librarians president “said she worries that children's future opportunities are at risk if they fail to learn basic research and Internet skills. ‘It's going to take a terrible toll on our students' ability to be competitive in college and in the workplace, and we are very concerned.’” The question is ...
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Sometimes earnest ALA Councilors want to use the ALA as a mouthpiece for their irrelevant (to libraries) radical political views. And sometimes, they want to use the ALA as a mouthpiece for their well meaning but still irrelevant (to libraries) political views. Such was the case last week when a well meaning Councilor proposed that someone write up a resolution for the ALA Council supporting H.R. 2437: Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning Act of 2011. Here’s the email to the ALA Council list: I have been tracking this bill for months, wondering when I should write a resolution. And it has recently gained more attention, I believe, due to the tragic shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin.  Two more Senators have added their names as co-sponsors. It still has a long way to go. The bill has to do with requiring socio-emotional instruction in classrooms. Here is more information from Casel http://casel.org/. Emotional self-regulation is taught to students which ...
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I for one am glad that some people are finally changing libraries so that people can be creative in them, because that’s never happened before in a library. At least that’s what you’d think if you’d been reading about the latest alleged trend of creating “maker spaces” in libraries. Check out this article falsely entitled Everyone’s a Maker at this Library Maker Space. Ahh, everyone’s a maker! And all their children are above average! And why is this “maker space” such a wonder to behold? Expanding on the notion that libraries are places to borrow books and media materials, library maker spaces can build community, encourage innovation and prompt a return to the vision of libraries as unrestricted hubs of information; with the information flowing both ways. The taking in of information is no longer enough; we must be able to then do something with that information, and here is where maker spaces shine. That would be pretty darned cool if it was ...
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