Will Unwound

I bow to the criticism that I write too much about public libraries and not enough about academic libraries.  The reason for that is quite simple.  I spent my entire working library life in public libraries.  So for today’s meditation I will try to enumerate the major differences between public libraries and academic libraries and let you decide if the public librarian and academic librarian are:

• Siblings
• Cousins
• Distant Relatives
• Completely Unrelated

Okay, here’s my list:

• Public libraries are filled with noisy children. Academic libraries are filled noisy adults.
• Public libraries have Dewey.  Academic libraries have LC.
• Public libraries have Boards of Trustees.  Academic libraries have Deans.
• Public libraries thrive on genre fiction.  Academic libraries thrive on non-fiction.
• Public libraries are supported by property taxes.  Academic libraries are supported by state taxes, tuition, and development funds.
• Public libraries exist to support their communities.  Academic libraries exist to support their schools.
• Public libraries provide a diversity of programs for children and adults to attend.  Academic libraries provide instructional classes for students.
• Public libraries are fun.  Academic libraries are serious.
• Public libraries are into cataloging.  Academic libraries are into metadata.
• Public libraries cater to the ebook crowd.  Academic libraries cater to the glue and paper crowd.
• Public libraries serve the homeless.  Academic libraries serve professors.
• Public library books have dust jackets.  Academic libraries get rid of dust jackets.

Thoughts anyone?

Today’s post really has nothing to do with libraries.  Well, upon reflection maybe it does.  You can decide at the end.

For the past two weeks I have watched the drama in Washington with a kind of “stages of grief” evolution.  First, denial…this farce can’t possibly be happening, can it? Second, pain…this is actually not a farce; this is a crisis.  Third, anger…this a self inflicted tragedy that will shatter our delicate economy.  Fourth, depression…as the debt default deadline approaches, this thing appears to be getting worse, not better.

As a student of history all through high school and college, I was taught that democracy, although better than any other form of government tried by humanity, has one big inherent weakness – division.  The US Civil War is the best example of this.  The division between the slave holding states and the free states became too wide to be bridged with compromise.  A bloody war ensued.

The founding fathers, fearful of tyranny, created a system that divided power horizontally (executive, legislative, and judicial) and vertically (federal, state, county, and local).  This system only functions effectively with the give and take of “the politics of the possible.”

Our federal elected officials, for reasons of pride, ideological purity, or just plain stubbornness, seem unwilling or unable to compromise and rescue this country from an incredibly damaging debt default.  It seems as though we are in a place where our federal elected officials could care less about the lives of working Americans.  Now it’s all about them, and they seem to identify themselves as Democrats, Republicans, and Tea Partiers rather than Americans.

The shocking inability of these officials to consider the common good is ultimately depressing.  Where are we headed as a nation?  These are scary times.  And the tragedy is that this is all self inflicted.

Any thoughts?

It’s Friday Fun day which means we get to joke around a bit.  Two weeks ago we poked fun at catalogers (who it turned out loved the jokes and have a great sense of humor) and one week ago we poked fun at patrons.  This week let’s pick on children’s librarians:

Warning Signs That a Children’s Librarian May be Reverting to Childhood

• Begins talking to everyone through finger puppets.
• Likes to take naps after lunch.
• Wants smiley stickers placed on annual performance evaluations.
• Can easily be motivated with pieces of candy.
• Resists working Saturdays because of morning cartoon shows.
• Can often be heard humming “Rubber Duckie”
• Does interdepartmental memoranda in crayon.
• Attends meetings holding Paddington the Bear.
• Starts a Big Bird fan club.
• Gets the READ poster of Miss Piggy framed for the office wall.
• Wears pajamas with feet to do sleepy time story hours.
• Reads Goodnight Moon every night to spouse at bedtime.
• Packs lunch in a Donald Duck lunch box.
• Pins notes to your shirt instead of sending emails.
• Starts each staff meeting by saying “let’s all put on our happy faces.”
• Appoints Tinkerbelle to the Youth Advisory Board.

Are you in it to Win it?

There is only one guaranteed way to win the public library funding wars.  You must have a strong, active, and outspoken board of trustees.

First an aside….I love what has become of library commentary.  Because of blogging, many very perceptive points of view on a very wide diversity of library issues are now being articulated.  Librarians are not only defending the principles of intellectual freedom, they are exercising them.  There is one subject, however, which the library blogger community has never quite gotten right – the issue of advocacy.    The common point of view among bloggers is that librarians must do a better job of advocacy.  This is both misguided and counterproductive.  When librarians advocate for libraries, they are seen by the outside world as promoting their own self interest.  If public libraries are to grow, prosper, and evolve, library users must be the chief advocates, not librarians.

A strong, active, and outspoken board of trustees can work wonders.  Let me tell you a little story.  In 1980, I became the director of the Tempe (AZ) Public Library.  I arrived on the job in the middle of budget hearings.  Typically, the director would be the spokesperson for the library budget, but since there had been a vacancy in the director’s office for almost 6 months, the library trustees were forced to get involved and take the lead. 

At the budget hearing with the City Council, they very aggressively asked for three new professional positions.  The City Council, and this was also in the middle of Council elections, was taken aback.  The very people they had appointed to the board were putting the hammer to them.  To say that the Council members were surprised and a bit intimidated would not be an overstatement. 

To the great chagrin of the city manager and finance director, the Council voted to grant not 3 but 5 new positions to the library!  This was such a revolutionary scenario for the city, that the police chief came up to me after the budget meeting and asked “where can I get seven hired guns like you have?”  Long story short, in the months ahead he put together a successful proposal for a new citizen’s police review panel.   

I get very frustrated when I hear librarians complain about their directors’ inability to secure adequate funding for their libraries.  This simply is not going to happen.  Number one,  only a director with a death wish goes political.  In current parlance, city managers and county administrators equate this with ”going rogue.”  Number two, the motives of high advocacy directors are always suspect.  Do they really care about the community they have only been a part of for a short time, or are they just trying to feather their own nests?  Draw your own conclusions if you are a lifelong community resident and taxpayer.

What directors should be doing, however, is the behind the scenes foundational work that needs to be done to build a strong, active, and outspoken board of trustees.  All too often, however, directors go in the opposite direction because they themselves are intimidated by having to report to a strong board.  They would rather keep their trustees weak and in the dark so as to protect their own job security even though it means losing funding.

In that case, the question… Are you in it, to win it?…becomes very telling.

Unwinders, your comments yesterday were  insightful as ever but they were full of gloom and doom.  If I didn’t wake up determined to be WINNING today you would have me down in the dumps.  But I refuse to go there.  Yes, there have been massive layoffs, branch closures, service cuts, and drastically declining revenues, but doggone it, you, the foot soldiers for Biblioterra are WINNING the war.  These are not the Dickensian best of times/worst of times.  This is definitely a worst of times scenario.  And you are WINNING.   That’s impressive.  So what if your salary has been cut, your benefits have been slashed, and you are on a pink slip short list, you are WINNING.  You are fighting the good fight and WINNING.  I am proud of each and every one of you, and Boris is serving free drinks all day and night on one condition: you leave a positive comment about the future of libraries.  Stop the whining and start the WINNING, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, listen to the master genius of WINNING and get some first hand tips:  Click on WINNING.

Why are libraries winning the battle with bookstores for customers and public support?

• Voters love not only libraries but the concept of libraries.
• Librarians are dynamic professionals who have embraced eChange.
• Free Wifi.
• Free Books.
• Free story hours.
• 6 types of Java (at my library anyway)
• Real newspapers you can crease and fold.
• Magazines galore.
• ComputersComputersComputersComputersComputers
• Puppet Shows
• Free eBooks
• Findability
• Weekend Hours
• Opportunities to help the poor
• Used book sales

Unwinders…now it’s your turn.  Remember the theme is WINNING.

And Boris, make mine an Arnold Palmer.  I took on a holy man at golf today and won 7 of 9 holes.  WINNING!

To be frank about it, your comments reacting to my last post about how public libraries effectively killed the Borders Bookstore Chain surprised me.

Many of you did not accept the simple logic of my argument.  Many people like to read and drink coffee.  Both the books and the coffee are cheaper at the public library than at Borders.  In a slumping economy, cheap is king.   Ergo…bye bye Borders.  You don’t need a college course in microeconomics to understand my premise, do you?

Yes, I can understand and I can appreciate the fact that Borders surrendered the on-line glue and paper book market to Amazon, and I can also understand and appreciate the fact that Borders surrendered the e-book market to Barnes and Nobles, but the bottom line is that the public library offers on-line services and e-books for free, which leads me to believe that Barnes and Nobles will also go under as a coffee, glue, and paper operation.

Ask yourself a question: are you a reader?  Of course you’re a reader; you’re a librarian. No one reads more than a librarian.  Now ask yourself another question: would you consider spending 20 or 30 dollars on a book.  Of course not because books are free at the library.  Readers are faced with that decision everyday because of the terrible economy.  When you have to cut your personal budget, you look for cheaper alternatives to  fill your basic daily needs, and to a reader books are as important as food, clothes, and shelter.

One commenter who understood exactly what I was saying wrote this: “Borders biggest problem was that it became, in essence, a coffee shop that offered books – at least if my son, a poor college student, is representative of their typical customer. I doubt that he bought very many, if any, books at Borders, but he drank a lot of coffee (although only one cup per visit) and used a lot of WiFi. He also sat in their comfy chairs and read their books. In fact, he told me that he often put a bookmark in the book that he was reading when he put the item back on the shelf.”

Personally, I think that is a very telling comment, one that librarians need to take to heart.  People like to be comfortable in a setting in which they are surrounded by books and get free wifi to boot! Hmmm….sounds just like a library.  So why are we so incredibly paranoid about the dreaded…DEATH OF THE LIBRARY!  Why are so many librarians beating the drum of despair?  The truth is we are what is happening.  It’s the big box bookstore that is dying…not the library.  The library’s future has never been brighter.  Why can’t librarians at least smile about this.  We have killed our biggest competitors. We’re the only game in town.

Consider the second half of this Unwinder’s comment:  “There was a Borders just a short distance from one of the libraries where I work. Many of our patrons would come to us with lists of books that they had seen at Borders but chose to borrow from the library rather than purchasing them.”

There is a challenge in that comment.  The patrons went first to the bookstore to browse, and then they went to the library to check out their selections.  Why are bookstores better places to browse?  What should libraries be doing differently in the way of merchandising?

Last week Borders, a large retail bookstore chain, went under.  All the chatter in the media was about why they went under.  The prevailing sentiment seemed to be surprise because bookstores on the surface appeared to be more popular than ever as meet, greet, sip, and browse venues. 

So why did Borders go under?  The prevailing answer from the financial experts is that Borders was slow to capitalize in the emerging ebook market.  Their take is that the traditional paper and glue book is a dying technology and that Borders died clutching it in its cold dead hands.  Therefore, the conventional wisdom is that Barnes and Noble got the jump with its Nook device and dealt Borders a fatal blow.

I don’t agree at all.  I think Borders went under because their prices were simply too high in a prolonged economic slump.  Does that mean that Amazon was really the one that killed Borders?  The answer is no.  Certainly  Amazon beats Borders every time in head to head competition, but I don’t really think that Amazon did Borders in.  People who went to Borders went for the whole “meet , greet, and sippa cuppa Joe” experience.  Amazon doesn’t offer that.

So who really killed Borders?  Simple.  Your neighborhood public library.  It offers paper and glue books cheaper than even Amazon and also provides a diversity of programming (adult and childrens) that easily exceeds the meet and greet experience of the coffee shop bookstore chains.

In all the articles on the death of Borders I didn’t read one sentence about the public library being the retailer’s  terminator.  But look at the consumer statistics.  Borders’ were way down and the public library’s are way up. 

What does this all mean?  Something very, very important.  It means that public libraries are more valuable, useful, and attractive than ever before. 

There is a basic litmus test in local government for judging the worth of a municipal service.  Can the service be provided cheaper and more efficiently in the private sector?  Clearly in the case of water and sewer services it cannot.  But in the case of refuse disposal and recycling it can be done cheaper by private entities.  That gets us to so called “soft” services like public libraries.  There is a strain of conservative politician who argues that public libraries are nothing more than tax subsidized bookstores.

The death of Borders has all but killed that argument.  The future of the public library has never been better.

Thoughts?

Note from Will: Unwinders, this email came in a few days ago.  It presents an interesting dilemma.  Please help a friend.  Thanks.

Comment from Will: Langdon, every time I read one of these cries for help from a new librarian I get on my knees and thank God for retirement.  Unfortunately, it’s a jungle out there.  I wish employers would be more considerate but the truth is they are probably dealing with hundreds of applicants and often times they do not notify everyone when a job has been filled.  They should, however, respond to your requests for information.  If they don’t respond, tell me something, Langdon…do you really want to work for them?

My dorm room in college was always a very popular place.  No, it wasn’t party central, and no, it wasn’t the site of late night bull sessions.  Oddly enough, it was a book that drew people to my room from all over my sprawling Gothic residence hall. 

Can you guess what book?  No it wasn’t an unexpurgated copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.  You wouldn’t be able to guess it in a million years.

It was the one volume Columbia Encyclopedia.  This was back in the 1966 to 1970 time period …the pre-Internet Dark Ages.  Today if you need a quick fact, you google it.  If you need to check a date, name, or place, you google it.

Back in 1968, looking up something in the Columbia Encyclopedia was as close to googling something as you could get.  It was portable (I had the paperback edition), concise, clearly written, and accurate.  It was also quick.  There was no wading through indices or search engines to get at the info nugget you needed.

I still use it for the same reason I have kept my twisty knob radio set.  It is simple to use and still quicker than Google.  This morning I used it to look up why unleavened bread is served at Passover.  I had the answer in thirty seconds, and this is information I can take to the bank without any worries about errors, distortions, or hackers.

I currently have the 2000 edition, and very interestingly here is what it says in the preface:  “Reference books have been affected by the computer revolution and some days it seems that the death of the printed encyclopedia is here.  Those of our readers who feared that this would happen to The Columbia Encyclopedia need fear no longer.  Readers continue to want a book that, with the flip of the page, can be turned for information whenever needed.  This encyclopedia remains the handiest one-stop, one volume solution for that need, capable of being powered up by the mind and connected to the desire to learn.”

Well, the folks at Columbia may have been a wee bit optimistic because the 2000 edition of the book is also the latest and would seem to be the last one.  How do I know this?  I googled it and then looked it up on Wikipedia.

No matter… I shall cherish and use my one volume masterpiece until it falls apart. 

QUESTION OF THE DAY…WHAT  REFERENCE BOOK DO YOU STILL USE IN TRADITIONAL BOOK FORM?

• An audio recording of live dinosaur sounds.
• A video of Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address.
• The area code for 911.
• An explanation of how the world will end.
• The meaning of life.
• An explanation of where urban squirrels go to die.
• The location of recent fairy sightings.
• A way to lose 20 pounds in 2 days.
• A demonstration of how to say “Hello” in sign language over the phone.
• The zip code for Mayberry, where Andy Griffith lived.
• Where to send a donation of $20 to help pay off the 14 trillion dollar national debt.
• The Blue Book price on an ’89 Corsica Hatchback that is missing the hatch.
• How to be admitted to the Federal Witness Protection Program.
• The location of the fat yellow book with the tractor on the cover.
• The age of a person when he or she is born.
• Annual reports from IBM, GM, and Willy’s Worms.
• The exact location of Cicely, Alaska, where the television show “Northern Exposure” is located.
• New novels with a lot of good sex and violence in them.
• New novels without any sex and violence.
• The name and number of the man who sells marijuana at the library.
• The name and number of the prostitute who works the library beat.
• The proper ceremony to follow for a dog’s funeral.
• Are there restrictions by law as to where you can bury a dead person.
• The book that tells you how to find out who you were in past lives.
• A biography of the soldier buried in the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier.
• An explanation of why so many Civil War battles were fought in National Parks.

Unwinders…a free drink from Boris for every wacky question you can add to the list.  Happy Friday Fun Day!