The post goes downhill after this photo...

in Office Hours: Heretical Thoughts, Mr. Michael Stephens had a conversation with a coworker that went like this:

I asked the question I always ask when I’m talking to someone who hires new librarians*: “What other skills and competencies should a new librarian have?”

His response? “I want risk-takers…innovators…creatives….I don’t want someone who’s afraid to make a move or make a decision without getting permission.”

This post is a risk because it challenges the most basic core belief librarians have. Mr. Stephens asked us “What are your heretical thoughts about libraries” and here’s my heretical response:

Why are there still libraries?

It’s an honest question. Times are tough. Most libraries are taxpayer-funded. Library advocacy is centered around convincing people that there is value in libraries. What other career field do we know of that is SO FOCUSED on merely justifying the existence of their jobs?  I mean,

WHY DO WE EVEN NEED LIBRARIES?

So I’m watching all those NBC comedies on Thursday night, and the show “Community” starts with this exchange. Two dudes talking about a librarian:

Troy: Why does being a librarian make her EVEN HOTTER?!

Abed: They’re keepers of knowledge. She holds the answers to all of our questions, like “Will you marry me?” and “Why are there still libraries?”…Hey, maybe if we’re too loud, she’ll “shh” us.

Then the character named Abed yells BOOKS as loud as he can to get some attention. That’s the library’s brand, after all: quiet shushing places full of books. Borders book stores just declared bankruptcy. Maybe that’s the destiny of anything with “book” in the brand? And at least Borders didn’t have things like this:

So let’s say you are watching that show with someone who’s not a librarian, and they laugh at Abed’s question. Then they ask the honest question “why DO we need libraries?“. What do you say?

Kanye West on books...

Let’s be honest: are libraries really worth saving when that funding could go to teachers or firemen? At some point, should we let libraries die?

So let’s say after you watch that show, you are watching another show that very same night on that very same network sitting next to the very same person, and the first scene in that next show starts with someone getting an overdue fine notice for a book. Should you be embarrassed, especially if your name on facebook is Librarian JP ?



Again, this is our brand: libraries are for overdue fines. And everyone reading this who’s a librarian could probably think of half-a-dozen library staff that they currently work with who are upholding this brand. Everyone reading this who’s a librarian could think of half-a-dozen library staff that they currently work with who are only barely less-nasty than the staff of the DMV or Post Office.

I mean, really, what are we advocating for?

• Are we advocating for libraries or simply for our own jobs? Sure you could point to all these book authors who seem like library champions, but…
• …are they advocating for libraries because it’ll sell more of their books?
• Is it some human right, like the right to food and water and shelter and health care, that people are able to rent out the latest James Patterson novel? What the heck is the point of 8bitlibrary and all this gaming-in-libraries silliness?!
• You could say “access to information” is a basic human right, but do you really need this gigantic expensive library infrastructure to do what is being done for free on the internet? Have a municipality or school just put a bunch of computers in a public place for people who can’t afford internet access, and that digital divide / access to info problem is solved.

On a weekly (and sometimes daily) basis, I get a twitter DM or a facebook message or an email from someone asking me: ZOMG JP PLEASE PASS THIS ON IF WE DON’T GET THIS FUNDING LIBRARIES WILL DIE. For awhile you feel like you are fighting a good fight by passing this stuff on.

Then there’s another capwiz to pass on.

And then another.

And then it’s quiet for a week and then another crisis. It’s like, in boxing, after you get knocked down SO MANY TIMES you get a TKO. When do librarians throw in the towel? Should we ever?

Or, is EVERYBODY ELSE wrong, and libraries are in the right? I’ve seen the library ‘value’ calculators and if they helped, we wouldn’t be in perpetual crisis. I’ve seen a saveXXstatelibrary.com for practically every state in the USA. Doesn’t their mere existence prove that they aren’t working? Here in my home state, our state librarian praised the fact that we only had a 43% cut to state library funding (which sent every library in the state library into chaos). While I do feel like those at the very top in my state were the ones who failed (and are praising their own failure) that “funding battle”, that situation raised a larger question in my mind:

Is this what I signed up?

Is advocacy itself the problem?

I just turned 29 years old last month, which means I’m young enough to jump ship in my career and leave librarianship behind. So do I stay and try to make things better? What really needs to change to make things better? Is this the solution?:

Maybe?

All I can do right now is hope that there are a few people out there who are feeling the same way and will hopefully be able to help us make some changes. And there ARE people like that out there, I think? I have friends trying to break out of the library echo chamber together. But what else? What’s next? What are the answers?

*...my contract runs out on June 30 2011, ask him if he'll hire me?