The Tao of Librarianship

Change what? How? To suit who?
Because it’s a slow day, and because I am so, so tired of folks who climb up on their soap box and shout for change without thinking about what they’re asking for, I’m taking this one line by line.

“Instead of having strict mobile phone or food rules, recognize that as humans we need to communicate and eat.”
True enough, but we also need quiet places and books/computer keyboards that aren’t covered in sticky. And I don’t have enough free time to wander around asking folks to lower their voices and pick up wrappers.

“We continue purchasing print journals. We still have items on microfilm.”
Yes we do, because not everything is digitized, or if it is, it’s not necessarily available online. Do we stop making a resource available if it’s not available in the popular new format?

“As librarians, we keep taking on new roles and offering new services without dropping other services. This is a recipe for disaster.”
Oh, this one’s true, but in our defense, it’s also extremely difficult to single out which services to drop. For example, my library has a new e-book service, and many folks in my community have new nooks and kindles that they need help learning how to use. I really want to carve time into my schedule to set up an evening e-book tutorial class. There are also other programs I’m leading in the evening that have fairly low attendance and could be cut to make room on my schedule for something new. It sounds so simple…in theory. But in real life, who do I disappoint: the two senior citizens in my evening books and tea group, the three teens in the anime appreciation club or the mother and son in my writing workshop?

“Librarians too should be able to change themselves, their services, and their resources to meet their community’s needs.”
It would be wonderful if we could, but communities’ needs are usually very, very diverse. The folks at the senior home want more large print, the teens want more graphic novels, the families want more children’s books, the hipster crowd wants indie fiction, the busy working folks want more popular fiction, the students and teachers want more reference materials and the kids just want a million copies of Harry Potter. The DVD lovers say to get rid of the VHS to make room for more DVDs because VHS is outdated, the die-hard VHS fans say keep the VHS because the DVD crowd gets most of their stuff through Netflix now anyway, and a small but growing minority is pleading for blu-ray. The audiobook lovers are divided between CD and cassette, and the tech crowd wants to ditch both and invest all of the audio funds in downloadable materials. You can tell me to serve my community and change with my community all you like, but my community is not surging joyfully forward into the modern age as one. Of course, I try my best to bring my stubborn holdouts up to speed with newer technologies, but if they refuse, do I have to refuse to meet their needs? Aren’t they members of my community too?

Libraries have very limited funds, and there are only so many hours in the day. (Even fewer with library hours being cut!) Who do I serve? Who do I ignore? People don’t change at the same rate, and not everyone has the funds/time/technical aptitude/willingness to embrace modern technologies. I agree that trying my best to serve everyone is exhausting, and not always terribly effective, but what else can a public servant do? Give me a community that’s united in what they want, and I’ll change every facet of my library to address their needs so fast it will make your head spin. Give me a billion-dollar budget and I’ll address the needs of every person in my community, no matter what level of change they’re at. Give me unlimited library hours and I’ll hold mind-blowing programs for every age, every ethnic group, every gender, every social group, every income level, and every last individual in my community.

Or give me a bit of peace, and let me keep doing my best.