Library Discarding Opportunity?

January 4th, 2007

Malcolm Pollack, a fellow ex-Pubsuber, sent me this piece from the WSJ. It argues that libraries should try to avoid being like Amazon and other big retail stores.

“If public libraries attempt to compete in this environment, they will increasingly be seen for what Fairfax County apparently envisions them to be: welfare programs for middle-class readers who would rather borrow Nelson DeMille’s newest potboiler than spend a few dollars for it at their local Wal-Mart.”

So, what should librarians do?

“New words come in and old ones go out, but a reliable lexicon becomes a foundation of linguistic stability and coherence. Likewise, libraries should seek to shore up the culture against the eroding force of trends.

The particulars of this task will fall upon the shoulders of individual librarians, who should welcome the opportunity to discriminate between the good and the bad, the timeless and the ephemeral, as librarians traditionally have done. They ought to regard themselves as not just experts in the arcane ways of the Dewey Decimal System, but as teachers, advisers and guardians of an intellectual inheritance.”

I’ve always thought in similar, less harsh, terms. Why bother competing with the big boys when there is no chance of winning? Libraries are different than the Amazons because we serve a niche market of readers. It seems that many libraries are trying to be the cool kid in school rather than the unpopular geek, who, BTW, winds up making a fortune 20 years down the road.

This is not a knock on the Fairfax County Library or any particular library that discards books based on circulation. Apparently, Fairfax is running out of room and had a huge cut to its budget this year, so they have to discard something. One would hope that they would use more methods than pure circulation stats as, we all know, circulation is not the only indicator of library usage. I’m sure patrons browse the stacks, grab a cup of joe, and read at a table. And, it’s quite possible that the books that are read in the library are not the Grishams, Kings, etc.

More on this very interesting story from the American Spectator and the Washington Post

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