John’s Blog

Mom & Adam both posted excellent comments on my Libraries as Endangered Species post, and I’ve been thinking about it enough over the past couple of days that instead of putting in my own comment on that thread, I wanted to start a new post.

One of the things that both mentioned is interesting, and something that (almost) everyone agrees is a baseline for the function of a library: to insure some level of information access to every resident (citizen?) of the US with some level of privacy. Adam correctly notes that most of the substitute goods that are taking the place of the library (broadband, Amazon, etc.) are generally expensive.

So I’m on board with this: a basic, non-negotiable function of public libraries in America should be to provide free & private information access to anyone.

But I think that isn’t enough.

I feel like that boils public libraries down into something that is functional, but not inspirational, not liberating, not empowering, not community-building. I feel like information access — through a rack of magazines, or a set of books, or the screen of an Internet terminal — only delivers on maybe 10% of the promise of libraries. Libraries can be more, and I think that in previous years they have been more. They’ve been places where people gather — community groups, author lectures, your city council, school groups. They’ve been places where people reach out to others in the community — the Bookmobile, for instance. They’ve been places where people are entertained — story time for kids, reading individually, etc.

So here’s what I’m struggling with. It seems to me that we live in an extremely utilitarian time. We only tally up measurable outcomes; we only use tax dollars or electoral leverage to implement things that are strictly legislated. I think that public libraries can & should be more than devolving into physical access terminals for information — but I guess that I’m not quite sure how to describe that or how to head towards there in today’s climate.

Here’s what Tom Friedman said in his most recent book The World is Flat that’s his message to his daughter who’s just gone off to college:

“While your lives have been powerfully shaped by 9/11, the world needs you to be forever the generation of 11/9 [when the Berlin Wall fell] — the generation of strategic optimists, the generation with more dreams than memories, the generation that wakes up each morning and not only imagines that things can be better but also acts on that imagination every day.

I think that maybe imagination should be one of the organizing principles for public libraries. Helping everyone to build their imaginations and to act on them. That’s what I’m going to start thinking about for my Board of Trustees application — let me know what you think…

I got a library card for the Sunnyvale Public Library yesterday, after 6 years of living here. Cynically, I got it because I’m in the process of writing up an application to be on the Board of Trustees of the library here, and it seemed like I should probably be a member of the library first. (Although I’ve given literally hundreds of books to SPL over the past few years, I haven’t actually gotten a card.) More optimistically, I wanted to spend some time thinking about the role of libraries in general, and this one specifically, in our lives. And of course, with a new baby on the way, I wanted to think some about what the world will look like as s/he grows up with respect to public libraries.

I think most everyone who reads this knows that my mom is a Professional Librarian, and lately works for Ingram Books helping libraries develop their collections. Add to that I live in a family that basically reveres books. My grandmother ran her own bookstore for about the whole time I was growing up (I used to love visiting) and works in a bookstore even now, in her eighties. My mom & dad always have had books in their hands and shelves full of them. And I read a little bit compulsively — it’s almost a nervous tic for me. (That’s the subject of another post that I want to do.)

Having said that, I don’t actually think that libraries are really in the book business — I think they haven’t been for a long time. With newspapers, magazines, audio, video, DVDs, software, and lately the Internet, it seems to me that they’re in the information access business. But that misses the point, too, I think — because as I was there this week, there were lots of different things going on — kids reading together, parents showing their kids how to look up information, lots of things.

But I have to be honest. I don’t use the library very much at all. For my information needs, I pretty much use my setup at home. For books, I buy an obscene number of them from Amazon or Borders (and get a huge amount from Mom as well). And when I walk around the library — any library — I just get the sense that they’re behind the rest of the world and struggling to keep up. When I see things in the library that I think are especially current, I always think to myself, “I’m surprised they have that here.” Like the new Tom Friedman book. Or the new Alias season on DVD. I wish I didn’t have that reaction, but I do.

I think there are a lot of things conspiring to make the role of the library a tricky one to figure out. The emergence of the Internet. The incredible volume of media sharing happening online. Broadband to the home. Starbucks as a “third space” to meet & hang out. Tapped out local & state budgets. The Patriot Act.

I don’t think that libraries should just be places where folks without access get access. I don’t think that they should just be places where people can get books or DVDs without buying them. But I’m having some trouble figuring out exactly what they should be. What they can be.

I believe that, along with public education, public libraries stand as one of the great & startling legacies of the founders of our country (not just the founding fathers, but a broader set than that). I think there is a place for community-based (as opposed to school-based) centers for learning & communication. I hope that libraries, as they continue to respond to pressure from every side, can figure out how to be all that they can be.

If you’ve got any ideas, give a holler. I’ve got to put something smart into my application in the next couple of weeks. 🙂