News from the IndyStar…the Westfield Washington Public Library will host the Visiting Nurse Service for a Flu and Pneumonia Vaccination Clinic from 10 a.m. until noon Oct. 30.
Are our libraries are turning into community/civic centers? How does it affect your library when civic (non-library based) services are happening there? Good or not so good…tell us.
Get your flu shots @ the library
Our libraries actively seek to be community centers. We regularly host not only flu shots, but blood drives, food drives, and lend our meeting rooms for polling locations at election time. We serve as art gallery as well, with the work of local artists featured in monthly displays.
It may be harder for the patron coming to pick up a hold to find a place to park when these activities are going on, but good things still result. The patron learns the blood drive is going on and donates a pint. Someone who came just to donate blood sees something good on a book display and applies for a library card so she can check it out. (85% of the households in our county have library cards.) They both learn about a program we have coming up and decide to attend.
Even patrons just using the library are subtly reminded of the larger world that exists outside their own concerns. Eventually they become active in their community as well.
It’s partly as a result of the good will incurred through our involvement in such activities that our library district is, according to polls, the most trusted government body in our county. We’re hoping that trust leads to the passing our request for a mill levy increase on Nov. 4th.
Library as community center
The 28 branch system where I presently work (in NE Ohio) is trying to turn their libraries from an instituion of research, books, and learning into a community center that wants to be all things to all people. It is a mistake. Because funding is being pulled from the collection and put into social welfare programs, the system’s collection is weak and shallow. Also, they’ve moved to a central selection policy so branch librarians are no longer in charge of their own collection. When people are ordering books for a branch that they’ve never set foot in, you get a great deal of waste (multiple copies of books that don’t circ) and gaps (books that are demanded by the community, but no branch in the system owns). They’ve taken away collection development responsibilites from branch librarians because they want us to devote most of our time developing and hosting programs. We are no longer librarians. We are Activities Coordinators at state run daycare facilities. Many of the programs the library offers are those that relieve parents of their parental responsibilites. Can’t take care of your kid? Drop him/her off at the library for the homework center/summer camp/free lunch/ program all at no cost! We’ll raise your kid for you! All funded by tax payers! They’ve discarded a great deal of items that are irreplaceable–all kinds of musical scores & sheet music, reels of rare films, etc., in order to become a ‘popular’ library as opposed to a ‘research’ library. I often have to refer my patrons to other library consortiums because our entire system does not own the books and other items that they want. I worry that there will be a backlash from voters come levy time because people might realize that they want their hard earned money to pay for books and databases in the library, not social activities and summer camps. I understand the need for programs at the library, and I enjoy creating programs. However, they should not be the library’s primary focus and should not come at the expense of the collection.