Eubonics (fwd)

[Publib Poster]

Sender: Robert Finch <rfinch at amon.pub-lib.ci.fort-worth.tx.us>
Subject: Eubonics


On the Jim Leher News Hour on PBS on Thursday there was a discussion on 
eubonics which transposed into a discussion on reading and literacy.  A 
fifth grade teacher from Washington D.C. said that the biggest help in 
his teaching of reading was the library.  Having new good books for his 
students was the biggest help he had in getting his students to read.  
Then the Clinton nominee for Secretary of Education  started talking 
about how Americore was going to put volenteer tutors in schools.

In listening to this discussion I went from from wild euphoria to total 
rage.  Someone was talking about libraries on national television in a 
positive light, only to have the discussion highjacked for a partisan  
political jobs program.

I admit that on this subject I am less than impartial.  On the day that 
Congress passed the LSCA funding of $150 million, Clinton announced his 
plan to fund Americore to establish after-school reading centers with 
$1.5 billion.  To put this into perspective Shaquille O'neal signed a 
seven year contract for $135 million to play basketball.

Congress thinks libraries are slightly more important than a basketball 
center while the president wants to give ten time the money for a 
volunteer program to re-invent our job just so he can act like John 
Kennedy.  The silence I hear is as startling to me as a clap of thunder 
and a bolt of lightning.  What I am seeing across the nation is the 
underfunding of American libraries.  What I am hearing from library 
leadership is silence.  The deathly silence of a funeral, our funeral.

The outsourcing in Hawaii and other places is a money problem.  
Technology is exacerbating this problem.  We are laying off our 
professional employees to keep up with computerazation when there is no 
guarentee that this protects the future of libraries.  I have seen very 
little research on "virtual libraries", but what I have seen brings up 
some interesting questions.

Who owns a vertial library? 
  
  When a publisher goes out of business what happens to the database?
  
  When there is a significant advance in the technology what happens to 
  the database?

By outsourcing collection development we are giving up one of our primary 
functions.  By giving up storage we are giving up one of our primary 
functions.  How much more can we give up and still be a library?

I am not a Luddite.  I am in love with the power of computers.  What I am 
not seeing enough of is the question: "What Information/Knowledge should 
the library be delivering to the public, and what is the best way to 
deliver it?"  What I am seeing too much of is: "Now that we have this 
great technology in the library, what do we do with it?"  If there are 
only technicians left in the library who will answer the question?


-Robert Finch

       **********************************************************
      *  Views represented are strictly personal and *DO NOT*  *
     *  represent those of the Fort Worth Public Library.     *
    **********************************************************