Patron prompt

A suggestion some nice person put in the box this past month got me to thinking.  The patron asked us, essentially, to "trade in" our books on tape collection for more books on CD.  Oh, were it so simple!    But the request is a fair one and, looking at the state of both our collection and "modern" technology, not surprising.  Or is it?  Many of the big box stores like Wal-Mart are shrinking their offerings of CDs and DVDs in favor of Blu-ray movies and downloadable music.  After all, sales of CD music albums are down drastically and number of users downloading music is up.  There are numerous tongue-in-cheek articles such as this one celebrating / mourning the passing of the CD medium.  There are compelling reasons to think that the CD is as dead as the 8-track, not least of which is the advent of the cheap mp3 player and the rise of iTunes and other music clearinghouses.  Even audiobooks, with which my patron is concerned, are becoming widely available in a downloadable form.

I have to stop and think, then, about where the library should put its resources.  Because the root of the problem for the library is that it takes a LONG time to build a substantial collection.  On one hand, I imagine millions of people own CD players and DVD players (I still have one of the latter).  On the other hand, according to wikipedia (an unimpeachable source, I know - wink, wink), 220,000,000 ipods alone have been sold worldwide.  That's just iPods.  Add tens or even hundreds of millions of other mp3 players to that and it is hard to imagine that we'll be using disk media much at all in the very near future.

The current state of affairs is that the library's collection money is split.  While we try to add a greater selection of titles to our downloadable audiobook collection, augment our CD audiobook collection, expand our DVD collection, AND contemplate adding more ebooks, we mustn't neglect, of course, our fairly diverse and deep print collection and our fledgling DVD collection.  Phew!  That is a lot of splitting!  Hmm...now I am getting a little depressed.

Perhaps the best way to move forward is through a collaborative effort.  If the patrons will let us know the specific titles they are interested in, in the specific format they prefer, then we will bear those things in mind as we expend our limited funds.  Until we arrive at another great plateau in formats for conveying information I think we all, but especially librarians, will have to gamble on investing in what seem to be the likeliest formats to succeed and last.

Hey! What did we do to you?

In the past few weeks I have noticed new vigor injected into what is NOT a new trend - suggesting that public libraries be closed, disbanded or replaced.  I know that hard economic times call for scrutiny of all spending.  I am in total agreement that all public spending should be judicious and planned to provide the greatest effect for the largest number of people possible.  I believe, in fact, those sorts of things should be going on in good times as well.  But this article appears to suggest throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Again, I am all for saving money.  I think, for example, the idea mentioned in that article of joint-use facilities can work very well.  In my experience, mostly these work as joint college/public facilities rather than public school/public library facilities.  There are many difficulties to solve with either scenario, but the issues surrounding inviting the general public into a public school facility are, in my opinion, much more daunting.  Still, it is a prudent thing to look at the possibilities if it could save money.

Here is another article from, of all places, the affluent Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, sent to me by a colleague of mine.  A fellow, Mr. Xinos, is apparently single-handedly responsible for the firing of public librarians from the Oak Brook PL.  Clearly, the city needs to scale back if they don't have the tax revenue, but to fire their Children's Librarian?  From a public library perspective, that's the same as shooting yourself in the foot.

I understand that as a librarian, my opinions may be a tad biased on this subject.  I realize too that as a great believer in the idea that education is the most important engine for societal improvement, my opinions might be further biased.  But I have to say that along with tremendous amounts of hard work, the United States would not be what it is without publicly-supported "free" access to ideas and information.  This goes for public libraries as well as free public education.  Ingenuity, creativity, study, and hard work literally propelled the United States to power.  Generations of Americans have striven for nothing more than a better life for their children and they achieved it with education.  How will we continue to be a place where people want to be?  Through hard work and education.

The crotchety old man in me wants to shake his fist in indignation and disgust at those who dismiss libraries as outdated, expensive, wastes of tax dollars.  But the student in me wants to learn why there seems to be a growing disdain for publicly supported institutions like libraries and what can be done to snap "us" out of our collective stupor.  Maybe it is up to libraries to, instead of championing the individual's growth and prosperity, find a way to champion, spur on, and propel their communities to new heights of growth and prosperity.