Public Libraries: No Longer for the Literate

The “Public Libraries: No
The “Public Libraries: No Longer for the Literate” article is exceptionally biased against specific media types (e.g. videos, CDs).

There are plenty of subjectively “non-essential” and entertaining books (and now ebooks) published each month, and many of these become national bestsellers in high demand among readers and reading groups.

If you are going to start weighing the worth and benefits of investing in entertaining materials of any kind, you cannot stop at videos.

Which is to say it would be disingenuous to call into question only one form of information.

And then who gets to decide what is essential or not?

Did you know many (if not most) libraries work within limited budgets, many of which are getting tighter each year? Because of this, anyone involved in collection development (i.e. suggesting or purchasing books for a library) are forced to constrain their decisions to what their patrons need and want.

What usually influences collection development the most is what people at a library request. These requests, and our need to inter-library loan materials we do not own, educate us constantly as to how well, for any given author or subject, we are meeting patron needs.

Collection development librarians will tell you: they cannot and will not order anything and everything. It is not only about financial constraints; it’s also about quality and space.

In order to make room for new items, we must “weed out” (i.e. withdraw) items from our collections. This is not an easy process. We take into consideration usage statistics, popularity of topics or authors, local area interests, and more.

Libraries work to reflect the needs and desires of their patrons. If patrons request videos and want us to purchase videos – or music CDs – we are bound, by their support, to bring our collections more in keeping with their expectations.

Of course, when looked at from a distance, any given collection can be easily criticized for having certain titles instead of others. Still, this is something that cannot be globally/nationally/non-locally decided: each library collection is necessarily localized, a mirror of its public’s interests.

Tastes vary and evolve over time, and patrons who once frequented the library for certain materials often “graduate” to other items, or they learn of and attend book discussions, music performances, and local cultural events hosted at the library.

Today, libraries are being forced to be more things to all people, and we librarians are having to do that while under unprecedented fiscal pressure and pathetically dismissive comments from people (who should know better) convinced, since they have Google and Wikipedia, they have all they will ever need online (and that everyone has access to the Internet).

The best way to ensure your library is serving your community in the best ways it can, you can do several things: attend board meetings, speak with librarians, suggest books and other items for a library’s collection.

Whatever you do, please do not settle for abstract, casual, biased, poorly-informed criticisms which look toward libraries as easy targets as states are desperately trying to solve their budgetary shortfalls.

For all the community enrichment and education you get out of libraries each day, you would be wise to look elsewhere for your savings, since any “savings” here would really translate into reduced capabilities with direct detriments impacting a library’s community.

Please do something constructive and get more involved with your local library. You will be surprised how much thought, debate, and effort goes into maintaining any sizable collection.

Collection development is way more difficult and demanding than most people realize.