Well I must say that I enjoyed this "thing." In fact, I found most of these perspectives to be quite comforting in that some librarians and libraries "get it."
I'm not a librarian (shock! gasp!). However, being immersed in public libraries for over 10 years, I feel like I'm a pretty good judge or outside authority on the subject.
I thought Rick Anderson's "Away from the Icebergs" article summarized much of what has become an issue for libraries today. For example, I would agree with his thoughts on the collections of libraries. Certain materials are in higher demand than others and it's imperative to meet those demands in order to serve the public.
Now granted, a library community's demographic will help to dictate the needs for that library's changes. We have a heavy "reader" population for our library branch. There are families that checkout upwards of 50 or 60 books at a shot (I think the record since I've been here was around 100 books at a pop). We also have a high demand for the bestsellers and popular authors, fiction, mystery, etc that any other library has. That's not to say that we don't have patrons looking for nonfiction or reference materials. However, our city is fortunate enough to house two libraries. More often than not, when it comes to collection development in the reference areas, the main building (understandably so) is the one that gets the most current material. Originally this was a frustrating issue. But when it comes down to it, there are tons of resources available online. If push comes to shove and that patron really, really, really needs the most current information from that reference book on stamps, he can just drive the 10 minutes over to the main building and go to town.
In some respects, I agree with one of my coworkers about our branch evolving into a fiction library. Almost like a circulating Barnes and Noble. Stock multiple copies of the most current fiction, the hottest authors, the best reads of the year. Not that we'd have to eliminate nonfiction or reference entirely. But I feel the collections can be adjusted to meet our needs. Resources would still be available online, and we have a whole OTHER library for our patrons to access. How many towns can claim that?
The other thing that was touched upon in this article was "reliance on user education." Let me apologize in advance to any coworkers or supervisors I may offend by my following opinion. We're understaffed. Now I know that's nothing new, and it's been like that for years and it's probably like that everywhere. But we're not just understaffed when it comes to numbers. We are understaffed when it comes to people capable of answering the questions or teaching the public about the services that they can access. It's absolutely great that we can offer down loadable audio books and as I just learned today, video on demand service. (How cool is that? All with your library card!!)
But our staff is under trained. It's almost a guarantee that any person who walks through that door or picks up a phone to ask about these services I'm going to have to field the question. Let me remind you that I am not a librarian. Let me also throw in that I'm not even a supervisor, let alone anywhere near the top of the food chain. I am an artist. If you told any of my college friends that I'm the "tech guy" they would laugh at you. Out loud. In your face. What I know I've learned from playing around on my own. I understand if numbers in the library cannot be increased. The staff NEEDS to be more knowledgeable. There's no point in providing services that are not understood by library staff. As a whole we need to be more aware of these services and at least understand the concept enough to be able to explain it to someone else.
I was going to talk about some of the other articles, but this post is way too long already. However I will add that I am proud of our libraries. Look at what we're doing. Look at what we offer. We may not be the forerunner by any means, but we're not really being left in the dust either. I think we're in a good position to keep adjusting and evolving. And if we're able to do so, the public won't outgrow us. They'll need us just as much, just in a different way.
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