June 2002

Would You Be a Member
Of These Book Clubs?


It\’s been three months now since Oprah Winfrey announced she was dropping her
book club as a regular feature, plunging the publishing industry into
mourning over the woman who almost single-handedly made 46 books huge sellers.


Since then, no fewer than five wannabes have rushed in to fill the void —
everyone from the staid business anchor Lou Dobbs to Kelly Ripa, the
soap-opera actress who is sidekick to Regis Philbin.

Steve Fesenmaier writes \” The following is part of a document I am creating on how to do the annual statistical survey for the State of West Virginia Public Library System –

Evidence Based Library Services by Steve Fesenmaier

During the last twenty years the term \”Information Age\” has become commonplace. Librarians have moved from the periphery to the center of our post-modern age. Whereas we once worked in a world of information scarcity, contemporary citizens work with a constant feeling of \”information anxiety.\” I believe that this requires a new attitude toward public libraries. We must ask ourselves if public libraries need to do the same things that they have been doing for almost a century in West Virginia.

The State Code requires that WVLC work with all of the state\’s public libraries, collecting data. Library boards, library directors, library staff and patrons can all look at the evidence themselves, comparing their library to others in the state or nation. Our librarians can use Bibliostat Connect or the Public Library Peer Comparison Tool at http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/libraries/publicpeer/. Hopefully boards and library directors will have the desire and time to do this, using evidence for making decisions about their institutional future.



Librarians may also want to expand their paradigm of library service by reading Sanford Berman\’s ten editions of Alternative Library Literature. His concern with intellectual freedom, services to the poor, fighting erotophobia, racism, sexism, and other forms of institutional negativity has been a landmark in the profession for 30 years. Berman has provided the evidence librarians need to drastically reform their libraries and services. Uncontrolled computerism has devastated many library budgets and Library of Congress Subject Headings have crippled library users. Berman\’s writings have presented librarians with a much more democratic view of their profession. He is the best practitioner of evidence-based library service.
\”