The Sky is Falling
Rose Schinker
A colleague sent me a July-August 2005 UTNE article entitled Knowledge for Sale : Are America 's public libraries on the verge of losing their way? Written by Chris Dodge, a former library employee. The more I read, the more I was annoyed. Not by everything, mind you. More like a gnat flying around you on a slightly breezy day. He gave the typical stats: there are more libraries than McDonald's. This is good; much like the saying that if you give a man a fish, he eats for a day – teach a man to fish…. Mr. Dodge went on to speak of the libraries closings, cutting back, and loosing focus. Some of these things were slightly off key. And it was the “slightly” things that added up. One such item: the caption under a picture states: Seattle 's new central public library may be an architect's dream, but is it a good house for books? I found myself thinking, weren't we as librarians angry because we didn't want the public to see libraries in our communities as warehouses for books? Libraries are gathering places where life happens. So when did this change? The confusion mounted after that. Dodge spoke of Siva Vaidyanathan and how Siva was telling someone, not sure who, what good and not good models for a library are. Who is Siva and should I be listening to what they are saying? How can one model be right or wrong for every community? A quick, all-knowing Google search brought up, first link, “Anarchist in the Library .” So I know I am in for a possible “Real Library World” episode. The first three pages on this site mentioned nothing of libraries but did define gossip. Then no more full-text. No more information. Thank you, Google.
Chicken Little spoke of the falling sky and knew it to be so because the chicken saw it, heard it and a piece of it fell right on its tail. This reminds me of myself until I got tired of worrying. In graduate school, I worried about being able to make it through financially, scholarly, if I made it – would I find a job, etc. until I realized how much energy I was wasting on worrying. So I quit worrying cold chicken, you could say. The pendulum has swung the other way, I guess, because now I tend not to worry unless there is really something to worry about…even then, my judgment had been blurred: two male students about ready to go fist-to-cuffs in the library and I'd been asked to literally get in between them. Turns out, there was a cultural misunderstanding and before I left, the two agreed to shake hands and be civil to one another and to continue their studying session together. The sky wasn't really falling. If a community or two has poor judgment, and, in reality, there are one or two out there, let's not run with them to the king to inform them of something we as good librarians know not to be true. If you read or hear of something that upsets you or confuses you, great! Use it to think, “How can I assure my library and my community will not respond in this way.” Use it to talk to your colleagues to see what great ideas they are trying in their community. Use it to communicate to your Library Board, City Council members, City Administration and to educated them what the local library community views are. Use it for the library's betterment.
So, let's quit being negative. And let's focus on the positive that library and librarians do. Do you know the public library in Hooper moved into a larger space? Kids and people are coming in droves. Hats off! Ceresco Public Library expanded their library with public funding. Yeah! Waterloo is getting a library (yes, “getting”) thanks to a kind citizen who believes in public libraries and the right of every community to have such a valuable resource. Cheers! Tilden, population 1,078 has an incredible public library thanks to a 1938 Tilden High School Graduate and a supportive community. Bravo! McGoogan Library of Medicine adopted a grade school and supports their library collection and has done so for years for the betterment of everyone involved. Encore! La Vista library has received over 20,000 donated items in the last 3 years alone thanks to the support from their community and the kind people from surrounding areas. Wahoo Public Library has broken ground on their new library site. And have you seen the new public library in Seward?!
Chris Dodge talked of “other reference sources gather[ing] dust.” I say, let's make sure those reference sources aren't librarians. As a student assistant, the academic library director was commenting to me upon his retirement how lucky I was to be entering the library field at the time I was. When asked why, he said that I would be seeing the library change in so many incredible ways. And, folks, we've only just started.
