On Libraries: No Really, Don't Stop Reading
Once, I saw a coworker in a random spot about 40 miles from where we both lived and worked. I was agitated. I really don't like it when my personal and professional lives conjoin in unexpected locations.
Which is why I tend never to mention the "L" word on RBCA. The "L" word is for NexGen Librarian. If you are interested in my thoughts on the "L" word, go there. This is my space. EBSCOHost, Internet guest passes, and Free Money to Quit Your Job: keep out!
But when I remember that I wasn't always in a place where library funding is unlimited, my two lives come together with a bang. And for the last week I've been mulling over the piece from Cool Cleveland (see Library Liability) and its responses (in this week's issue, Cleveland of the Mind - see Yr Turn), and Ohio legislature 'logic': Nice libraries; Let's get 'em [thanks Stephen]. The part that grabbed me from the latter PD column was this:
"Ask anyone who moves out of Ohio, especially parents: One of the first things they miss, besides grandparents left behind, are the fantastic libraries - treasure-houses for children, people's universities for adults, workshops for the very brand of "by-the-bootstraps" self-improvement Ohio's Republicans say they want to promote."
You may not realize this, but Ohio has the best public libraries in the country. That's because of the Library and Local Government Support Fund (LLGSF), a statewide honeypot that essentially distributes dollars equitably among richer and poorer districts, allowing a sort of leveling of the playing field so that libraries in seriously depressed areas (like Southeast Ohio) will not have to close their doors when local levies fail.
Now, equal access sounds nice and all, but I don't think the taxpaying public at large understands much about what public libraries are for. Yes, they're for story time, and for getting Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince without having to pay for it. But they aren't just for pleasure reading. It troubles me when people think that library supporters only support libraries "so that our neediest citizens can read as much as the well-off" (italics mine), as Michael Bowers does in "Why have libraries when books on sale are cheap, accessible?":
"I thought government was to put out fires and defend the borders. Not to give us stuff to read. I mean, thanks to the private sector, it's already everywhere you look. If I simply bought one copy of every magazine offered at the corner Mobil station — covering everything from Kawasaki motorcycles to Esquire women we love to Forbes financial advice — I'd be reading for the next year.
Yet, now the poor taxpayers in Orland Park [Illinois] are stuck three times over. First, they paid for an unneeded library. Then, they paid for an unneeded bookmobile. And now, they must pay the $8.5 million bill to settle the lawsuit over the 2001 bookmobile crash that left a man brain-damaged.
All this foolishness could have been avoided if government had just stayed out of the library business in the first place."
Now, to the untrained eye, the eye which has no idea what public libraries are for, this might seem like a good idea. Get rid of the library so low-income families who don't like to read anyway won't be so burdened with the relatively piddly little tax that pays the local reference librarian's $27,000/year salary (that librarian, I might add, is also not some kid they plucked off the street to occupy desk space. She's educated up the wazoo).
Indeed, those untrained eyes might also fall upon "Public Libraries an Expensive Relic" by Jim Trageser of the North County (California) Times. Trageser tries to convince his readership that they should ditch plans to build a new library and invest in a community-wide WiFi network instead, "so that all citizens may have unfettered access to the virtually unlimited library that is the Internet." (If you think that all information is available, for free, on the Internet, I'm just going to tell you nicely - because some librarians wouldn't be so nice - that you're very wrong.)
So it disturbs me that increasingly plagued Ohioans, trained to hate the "T" word, even though the "T" word is just a way of paying for services that make life better for all, might soon also be plagued by this kind of nonsense about what libraries are for, in an effort to justify cutting the LLGSF. The same way that they've learned to justify funding cuts to public schools because teachers need to be taught "fiscal responsibility."
So, in the hopes of answering this kind of ridiculous talk before it starts, I shall demonstrate, by way of listing some recent questions I've had at the reference desk, exactly why the practices of buying books and using the Internet will never, ever replace the public library:
I also want to respond to this statement in Trageser's column:
"While it's true that not everyone owns a computer today, prices have dropped to the point than one can now purchase an Internet-ready home computer for less than the cost of a color television. Even computers too old and slow to run the latest games or business software are more than adequate for surfing the Web, checking e-mail or newsgroups, or instant messaging.
What removes these resources from the reach of low-income families isn't so much the lack of a computer as it is the lack of access to the Internet."
You can have a computer, you can have Internet access, but it doesn't mean you know what to do with them. Most public librarians I've talked to have had at least one experience with someone picking up a mouse and pointing it at the computer monitor like it's some kind of remote control. Ask any public librarian and they'll tell you that if they only had a dime for every time someone approached the reference desk prefacing their question with, "Now I don't know anything about computers, but I need to find...." Just yesterday I did a two hour, one-on-one tutorial with a woman who needed to learn to use Microsoft Word because she realized that she just wasn't going to get ahead in the workplace if she didn't know how to use computers. Who else is going to help these people?
Who is there to provide a solution when your teenage kid's report is due tomorrow and you have to find 10 full-text articles on the effects of poverty on education?
Who is there to pick up the pieces when Free Money dreams are dashed, Matthew Lesko is exposed as a complete charlatan, and yet you still need to find a low-rate personal loan so you can continue to pay for your elderly parent's care?
In conclusion, you need to understand that people come to the library when they're desperate. They need tax forms that were due yesterday. They need a divorce, and don't know where to start. They need to find out what the local ordinances are on barking dogs. They need to register to vote, to fill out a Golden Buckeye application, to get a passport. They are often in a state of panic, are irate, distracted, and in a hurry. They need something that somebody told them the library had, whether the library has it or not. They don't always need something to read on the beach. In fact, that's a very, very small part of what I, as a reference librarian, handle every day.
Being a librarian doesn't mean we're sitting around reading. Though I enjoy what I do, at its worst, it can be a difficult, draining, unpleasant job: again, ask any public librarian and they'll tell you they've had at least one experience with that roving artiste whose medium is fecal matter and whose canvas is the restroom wall. (It would now take two hands to count how many times I, personally, have encountered this - I was also lucky enough to once happen upon five large splotches of human ejaculate on the carpet in the 300's. Whoever thought that personal finance could be so arousing?) This is a job that can require daily contact with the mentally disturbed, or at least daily contact with patrons who could double as extras in a David Lynch film. Don't get me wrong, it often feels good to get people what they need, to know you're helping someone that clearly has nowhere else to turn, but it can be frigging hard, too.
Perhaps Bob Taft himself would like to offer his services, if Ohio libraries should begin closing their doors. I, myself, would find inordinate glee in trying to watch him deal with the screaming lady who needs the phone number to the DMV so she can complain about how rudely she was treated by one of their employees.
So, please, if you find yourselves amid the kind of company that begins wondering aloud, "why do we need libraries, anyway?" -- point them to this. Hell, I don't care if you print out a thousand copies of my humble little missive, fashion them into paper airplanes, and climb to the top of the Terminal Tower and let 'em float indignantly down onto the heads of the dozen or so panhandlers below.
Because, after all, one of those panhandlers might pick it up and think, hmm, I never thought of going to the library to ask for help.
Which is why I tend never to mention the "L" word on RBCA. The "L" word is for NexGen Librarian. If you are interested in my thoughts on the "L" word, go there. This is my space. EBSCOHost, Internet guest passes, and Free Money to Quit Your Job: keep out!
But when I remember that I wasn't always in a place where library funding is unlimited, my two lives come together with a bang. And for the last week I've been mulling over the piece from Cool Cleveland (see Library Liability) and its responses (in this week's issue, Cleveland of the Mind - see Yr Turn), and Ohio legislature 'logic': Nice libraries; Let's get 'em [thanks Stephen]. The part that grabbed me from the latter PD column was this:
"Ask anyone who moves out of Ohio, especially parents: One of the first things they miss, besides grandparents left behind, are the fantastic libraries - treasure-houses for children, people's universities for adults, workshops for the very brand of "by-the-bootstraps" self-improvement Ohio's Republicans say they want to promote."
You may not realize this, but Ohio has the best public libraries in the country. That's because of the Library and Local Government Support Fund (LLGSF), a statewide honeypot that essentially distributes dollars equitably among richer and poorer districts, allowing a sort of leveling of the playing field so that libraries in seriously depressed areas (like Southeast Ohio) will not have to close their doors when local levies fail.
Now, equal access sounds nice and all, but I don't think the taxpaying public at large understands much about what public libraries are for. Yes, they're for story time, and for getting Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince without having to pay for it. But they aren't just for pleasure reading. It troubles me when people think that library supporters only support libraries "so that our neediest citizens can read as much as the well-off" (italics mine), as Michael Bowers does in "Why have libraries when books on sale are cheap, accessible?":
"I thought government was to put out fires and defend the borders. Not to give us stuff to read. I mean, thanks to the private sector, it's already everywhere you look. If I simply bought one copy of every magazine offered at the corner Mobil station — covering everything from Kawasaki motorcycles to Esquire women we love to Forbes financial advice — I'd be reading for the next year.
Yet, now the poor taxpayers in Orland Park [Illinois] are stuck three times over. First, they paid for an unneeded library. Then, they paid for an unneeded bookmobile. And now, they must pay the $8.5 million bill to settle the lawsuit over the 2001 bookmobile crash that left a man brain-damaged.
All this foolishness could have been avoided if government had just stayed out of the library business in the first place."
Now, to the untrained eye, the eye which has no idea what public libraries are for, this might seem like a good idea. Get rid of the library so low-income families who don't like to read anyway won't be so burdened with the relatively piddly little tax that pays the local reference librarian's $27,000/year salary (that librarian, I might add, is also not some kid they plucked off the street to occupy desk space. She's educated up the wazoo).
Indeed, those untrained eyes might also fall upon "Public Libraries an Expensive Relic" by Jim Trageser of the North County (California) Times. Trageser tries to convince his readership that they should ditch plans to build a new library and invest in a community-wide WiFi network instead, "so that all citizens may have unfettered access to the virtually unlimited library that is the Internet." (If you think that all information is available, for free, on the Internet, I'm just going to tell you nicely - because some librarians wouldn't be so nice - that you're very wrong.)
So it disturbs me that increasingly plagued Ohioans, trained to hate the "T" word, even though the "T" word is just a way of paying for services that make life better for all, might soon also be plagued by this kind of nonsense about what libraries are for, in an effort to justify cutting the LLGSF. The same way that they've learned to justify funding cuts to public schools because teachers need to be taught "fiscal responsibility."
So, in the hopes of answering this kind of ridiculous talk before it starts, I shall demonstrate, by way of listing some recent questions I've had at the reference desk, exactly why the practices of buying books and using the Internet will never, ever replace the public library:
- "My teacher said I have to find a newspaper article on J.M. Barrie from the New York Times. It has to be from 1913. And I have to use a microfilm machine."
- "There was an article on the front page of the Passaic County (NJ) newspaper in October of 1980 or 1981. I can tell you what it was about, but I don't know the name of the article or the exact date. Can you help me find it?"
- "I need to find out what plumbers were listed in the Ocean County (NJ) yellow pages in 1993."
- "Can you find an obituary for my grandfather - he died somewhere in New Jersey in 1967."
- "I need 5 book sources on gay marriage. My teacher said I couldn't use anything from the Internet." (Would you really encourage a low-income 14 year old to go out and purchase 5 books for a 2-page assignment?)
I also want to respond to this statement in Trageser's column:
"While it's true that not everyone owns a computer today, prices have dropped to the point than one can now purchase an Internet-ready home computer for less than the cost of a color television. Even computers too old and slow to run the latest games or business software are more than adequate for surfing the Web, checking e-mail or newsgroups, or instant messaging.
What removes these resources from the reach of low-income families isn't so much the lack of a computer as it is the lack of access to the Internet."
You can have a computer, you can have Internet access, but it doesn't mean you know what to do with them. Most public librarians I've talked to have had at least one experience with someone picking up a mouse and pointing it at the computer monitor like it's some kind of remote control. Ask any public librarian and they'll tell you that if they only had a dime for every time someone approached the reference desk prefacing their question with, "Now I don't know anything about computers, but I need to find...." Just yesterday I did a two hour, one-on-one tutorial with a woman who needed to learn to use Microsoft Word because she realized that she just wasn't going to get ahead in the workplace if she didn't know how to use computers. Who else is going to help these people?
Who is there to provide a solution when your teenage kid's report is due tomorrow and you have to find 10 full-text articles on the effects of poverty on education?
Who is there to pick up the pieces when Free Money dreams are dashed, Matthew Lesko is exposed as a complete charlatan, and yet you still need to find a low-rate personal loan so you can continue to pay for your elderly parent's care?
In conclusion, you need to understand that people come to the library when they're desperate. They need tax forms that were due yesterday. They need a divorce, and don't know where to start. They need to find out what the local ordinances are on barking dogs. They need to register to vote, to fill out a Golden Buckeye application, to get a passport. They are often in a state of panic, are irate, distracted, and in a hurry. They need something that somebody told them the library had, whether the library has it or not. They don't always need something to read on the beach. In fact, that's a very, very small part of what I, as a reference librarian, handle every day.
Being a librarian doesn't mean we're sitting around reading. Though I enjoy what I do, at its worst, it can be a difficult, draining, unpleasant job: again, ask any public librarian and they'll tell you they've had at least one experience with that roving artiste whose medium is fecal matter and whose canvas is the restroom wall. (It would now take two hands to count how many times I, personally, have encountered this - I was also lucky enough to once happen upon five large splotches of human ejaculate on the carpet in the 300's. Whoever thought that personal finance could be so arousing?) This is a job that can require daily contact with the mentally disturbed, or at least daily contact with patrons who could double as extras in a David Lynch film. Don't get me wrong, it often feels good to get people what they need, to know you're helping someone that clearly has nowhere else to turn, but it can be frigging hard, too.
Perhaps Bob Taft himself would like to offer his services, if Ohio libraries should begin closing their doors. I, myself, would find inordinate glee in trying to watch him deal with the screaming lady who needs the phone number to the DMV so she can complain about how rudely she was treated by one of their employees.
So, please, if you find yourselves amid the kind of company that begins wondering aloud, "why do we need libraries, anyway?" -- point them to this. Hell, I don't care if you print out a thousand copies of my humble little missive, fashion them into paper airplanes, and climb to the top of the Terminal Tower and let 'em float indignantly down onto the heads of the dozen or so panhandlers below.
Because, after all, one of those panhandlers might pick it up and think, hmm, I never thought of going to the library to ask for help.
posted by Christine Borne at 12:04 PM
4 Comments:
Shalom Christine,
I'm the only one in my family that left town. And it was all because of the Washington County Public Library. I devoured books and by the time I was 15 I knew I wanted to see and do all the things I'd been reading about.
There is no better investment any civilization can make than in libraries.
B'shalom,
Jeff
Awesome post.
Why oh why oh why is OLC not speaking like that? I have seen the testimony given by the OLC President. You would be a better advocate for libraries here.
P.S. Need a housekeeper/butler? :-)
I love the library!
Thanks for leaving a comment at my blog. I was going to comment here earlier, but I was at work in the lab so I couldn't do so.
The library is such a great resource, and I never really appreciated how good Ohio's libraries were until I was away from 'em.
Did you really used to work at the Shaker Libraries? If so, were you at Woods or Main? If you were at woods there's a good chance you probably met someone in my family (most likely my little brother)
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