WILL UNWOUND #659: “YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR FIRST TIME”
January 18, 2012David Lee King is one of my favorite library people. He is the library profession’s number one expert on integrating social media into your overall library program. I’ve never met him but I really like his blog (David Lee King) and his new column (Outside/In) for American Libraries Magazine. He is the digital branch manager for a great library system in Kansas, the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, which is run by a very dynamic librarian named Gina Millsaps who is running for ALA President. (Hint: vote for her!).
David is one of those rare specimens in our profession – a technologist with a sense of humor and an appreciation for glue and paper books. If your day is going badly and you need a chuckle, click on his video Library 101.
The reason I bring him up is because of his latest blog post: “Hey, Milwaukee, You’re Doing It Wrong.” When I read the post I got this funny feeling of deja vu. David was taking Milwaukee Public Library to task for their latest advertising campaign: a quirky series of tongue in cheek billboards suggesting that hey, maybe a little less social media time and a little more book reading time would do you good. Here is David’s commentary:
- I get that the billboards are meant to be tongue-in-cheek, and that many online types think they’re witty and clever. And I think books are wonderful – no problems there. But I also see a lot of libraries taking wistful looks into the past, rather than actively planning to navigate our emerging digital content future. To me, these billboards are looking into the past. Things aren’t going to go back to the way they were, no matter how many times we tell people they should be reading a book instead of watching a Youtube video or hanging out on Facebook. Is this the message you want to send to your community? I’m not convinced it is.
- “The Milwaukee Public Library System is airing a television commercial that shows a man being arrested by a Sergeant Friday type detective. The villain is seen scurrying down a dark street with records, films, cassettes, eight tracks, art prints, jigsaw puzzles, and sculptures. He has everything but a hamster, a chain saw, and an aluminum baseball bat. Friday naturally assumes that the gentleman has knocked over the local K-Mart, and he can’t believe it when the poor guy pleads that he has only been down the block to his friendly neighborhood library. Actually, Friday should have arrested the Milwaukee Library System on the grounds that it was impersonating a hock shop. For a library system with over 3 million books in its various member library collections to promote itself as the purveyor of an eclectic array of audio visual trinkets is akin to Bard College portraying itself as a training ground for defensive tackles and strong side safeties simply because it has a football team.”
- “The name of the new p.r. game for libraries is not to mention books. Rather, it seems that librarians want to project the image that their institutions have a little more flash and dazzle than simply Shakespeare, Chaucer, World Book, and the Chilton auto repair manuals. They apparently want to give the impression that Donnie Osmond on tape is more important than Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, or that one Norman Rockwell print is worth four set of McGraw Hill’s Encyclopedia of World Art. Are library p.r. people afraid that the mere mention of the word “books” will scare way too many would be users?”
We should be promoting Literacy/Life Long Learning/Reading-in whichever format people choose.
Kaye, I agree, but the ebook industry is making it difficult for us.
Or maybe you just like to beat up on them – lol.
John, 31 years is a long time after a beating.
What is a long time depends on your perspective.
–A man hears a knock at his front door. He opens the door, and there’s a snail on his front porch. He flicks the snail into the grass and goes back in.
Three years later, he hears a knock at the door. He goes to answer it, and there’s the snail. The snail says, “What was *that* all about?”
RA…Now I know why I wrote this post. So that you would share that wonderful story with us. Magnificent! Thanks.
I have been out of the library biz for some time, but in the last year have been back as a temp in a local college library.
I’m quite surprised to find many of the students requesting glue and paper books. The library subscribes to an online database of full text ebooks, but the students are often reluctant to use it.
One anecdote—a student, likely aged nineteen or twenty years, was looking for a copy of Othello. I default to looking for paper books, having been raised in the pre ebook era. I found her a copy in the library, and as I handed it to her I said, “of course, you can find this online, or full text in the library database.”
She said, “oh I know. I just like to have the real book.”
This is one of many similar experiences I’ve had here.
So, can we assume reports of the death of the book have been greatly exaggerated?
Roger, I was hoping someone would raise that issue. As I look back to that first article of mine 31 years ago I notice that many of the media resources in the tv commercial are now obsolete. Real books? They’re doing just fine, thank you. Great insight about today’s students. Thanks for commenting.
I’m with Milwaukee on this one. All You Tube and Facebook are doing is training people to have short attention spans. The day will come when it will be impossible for some people to read a book because they can’t digest information that is longer than three sentences or one minute of video. Off the subject, but I don’t go to the movies any longer because with CGI, the movies are just cartoons for grownups.
metoo….great comment. I agree with everything you’ve stated. The sad thing is that grownups seem to prefer cartoons. On the other hand, I loved the Artist…loved it.
David Lee King is right to caution us that we should be vigorously promoting reading, in whatever format, but we should be careful not to imply that printed books are the only worthy format.
Wayne, I agree. He makes a very good point when he gives examples of some information that is better delivered in alternative formats.
Seems to me nothing ever changes. Libraries were and are striving to find relevance by painful public introspection. It’s like one of those old Greek tragedies where the death throes go on and on and on and on until the guy finally croaks and the audience can go home, sighing with relief.
Look. Who, exactly, is in charge here? Seriously, why am I paying you to look down your nose at me? I want to read Tom Clancy, maybe on a Nook, not Shakespeare. You artsy fartsy librarians need to stop lamenting the fact that my reading tastes don’t live up to your high standards and provide the books any way I want to read them. If you do not, I’ll go elsewhere. See a shrink if you’re that screwed up, but stop this public whining. It makes you look ineffectual. Suck it up you damn metro-sexual twits!
Mick, what are you drinking tonight? Free drinks for you. Boris, line em up.
Many thanks for the kind words, Will! You won’t remember, but in the previous century as a baby librarian, I interviewed with you at ALA. It’s an honor to be recommended by a fellow library veteran.
Cheers, Gina
Gina, you’re going to make a great Prez!
[...] – Check out Will Manley’s post for a historical perspective on a very similar issue … with the same library, no less (ok, [...]
Well, I’m with David Lee King on this one, if for no other reason that I think that the Milwaukee Public Library is behaving as if social media are the enemy or the competition. It makes them sound defensive, which is never good. Nobody’s claiming that social media are the cultural equivalent of Shakespeare, but there’s a place in the scheme of things for them. What’s wrong with promoting reading without trashing something else we may need to use later?
I recently went to a sushi restaurant for the first time in my life. I’d wanted to for years, but none of the friends I usually go out with wanted to try sushi and I didn’t want to go alone because I wasn’t sure how to order and was afraid I’d look silly. Half the customers that come into our library don’t really know how to order from the
magnificent banquet of information available to them from a vast menu of sources–print, nonprint, you name it. We need to be helping them find what they need and want without implying that some items on the menu aren’t worthy.
You have a point, Beth, but I think the Milwaukee is offering an alternative…i.e. books.
Thanks for the link to the article.
I agree with David especially when he said: “Things aren’t going to go back to the way they were, no matter how many times we tell people they should be reading a book instead of watching a Youtube video or hanging out on Facebook.:
That is a real issue today with the publishing industry and the media industry — -they want to hang on to their old comfortable status quo and the advancing technology is changing everything so they can’t.
It is too bad they are making it difficult for public libraries while they are trying to cope; even though the Kansas Library System versus Overdrive and the direct purchase of eBooks by the Douglas County Libraries (Colorado) does give me some reason to be hopeful.
Linda, the question you have to ask then is how do you provide ebook services when the ebook industry is creating a business model that is not conducive to library participation.
Why is it that wherever I have followed this debate on these particular Milwaukee ads, I get the feeling that the issue is print vs. social media. The Milwaukee ads do a great job of promoting aspects of the services that they offer, be they physical book or FaceBook. The best part is they do so with humour and in an engaging fashion that will appeal to those people who are familiar with those social media sites.
I like the ads, and I’m enjoying the lively debate they are generating within library circles.
I love the humor. We keep forgetting to mention that these billboards are darned clever.
Here’s my problem with the Milwaukee ads: They won’t attract new users. They serve to reinforce the opinions of those who already value the library.
Will, I respectfully disagree with your opinion. Now is the time for librarians to talk less about books and information and more about knowledge and wisdom. It’s not that I think books won’t be around for a long time. It’s that I think we need to focus on the other services we provide so that we remain relevant and funded.
Think about services to the unemployed. Is it more powerful to say that we provide internet access and newspapers with job listings and resume writing books (information & books) or that we provide on-site help to guide those who are computer illiterate through the online application process (knowledge and wisdom)?
Here’s what the billboard should say, “Get help with your online resume at Milwaukee Public Library.” This will get new users in the door.
jg…I just can’t see libraries surviving without books (real or virtual). It’s our staple. Everything else is supplementary.
So are you predicting that libraries will go away or that they will become archives? What happens when all recently published books are in ebook form only and the publishers won’t let libraries purchase them?
That would definitely be the death knell. But it’s not going to happen.
[...] then you have posts like this one, by David Lee King (referencing a companion post, of sorts, by Will Manley) about one library system’s misguided (?) marketing campaign that attempted to redirect their [...]
Seems to me that librarians are taking this too seriously. The ads are for BILLBOARDS, meant to catch people’s attention while they are driving past. Non-librarians I have showed these to think they are cute, funny and eye-catching. They totally don’t get any of the subtexts we are talking about. They just think “Funny. Library.” I think our angst is clouding our judgement, no matter what side we take on this one.