" 'What keeps us library types going when the dotcoms are going bust is this: We have a business plan that has stood the test of time, a plan in which generations of librarians have believed in passionately, a plan that has inspired countless library users and city councils because of its simple elegance. What we have is a bargain with history as well as brilliantly simple historical bargain. Libraries promise to share knowledge and seek wisdom. We keep that promise, whether it is with print, what we used to call non-print, or with electronic sources. We do it at bargain prices. For this society rewards us. Not much, it's true. But we have a staying power that other less clear business plans (like NetLibrary or other dotcoms) never approached.' -- Thomas Hennen, librarian, author, and purveyor of Hennen's American Public Library Ratings (HALPR)
This is the first curse of the modern librarian: tough love hurts. Still, it's a necessary pain. Too few people understand that library services aren't really free--like all government services, they're just pre-paid. And as a profession, we haven't done a good job explaining to the public that books do not magically fly onto shelves, librarians and other library employees do not work for the sheer fun of it, and Web sites do not fix their own broken links. In large part due to the very factors that make us special--particularly our strong service orientation and our keen interest in the public good--we are all too expert at "making do," and that has made us easy targets for cuts....
If you think tough love is hard this year, brace yourself for 2003-2004, when--rumor has it--budget problems nationwide will get worse, not better. Redwoods may have to be felled. The real tragedy is that library services have to cut budgets at all. Most of us provide extraordinary services at rock-bottom prices, and most library directors I know are experts at squeezing water from stones. If library directors managed their budgets, Enron and Worldcom would not only be in business, they'd be turning a profit (can you see their senior executives sharing rooms at conferences, sorting donated books for the Friends' Book Sale, or--as I learned to do as a rural library director--using their own money to buy toilet paper?)....
This year and next year, most of us won't introduce new services, improve salaries and benefits for library workers, or move into new technologies. We'll continue to provide our best services, and to some extent--because we really can't help ourselves--we'll even "make do." But when possible, more than ever, because we do care so much about those we serve, we'll use tough love to create teachable moments--because we owe it to those we serve to still be standing proud after the storm passes--and we have a business plan that insists we will ultimately prevail." [Free Range Librarian, via Library News Daily]
Thursday, October 03, 2002
