[Publib] Re: "entertain our diverse community"

[Miriam Bobkoff]

I've been travelling and not following the whole thread, but I have to pipe 
up here.

Joshua said:
>Video games (and movies and TV shows and books and comics and so on and so 
>on) aren't *just* entertaining, and no one has said that "*just* 
>entertainment" is or should be part of any public library's mission. I 
>would, however, argue that entertainment should be a factor.

Speaking as a library patron, I don't know that I agree to reject 'just 
entertainment'. Chesterton said, "Literature is a luxury; fiction is a 
necessity." I have been a full-immersion reader of fiction all my life, 
what a friend of mine calls a trance-reader. I wouldn't insist on labeling 
the stepping out of my own self which I seek as something other than 
'entertainment'. I don't care what we call it: a lot of our users also need it.

Also we might need to make a special new label for "materials people can 
check out to help them through long airtravel days". Entertainment as 
necessity.

This doesn't say anything either way about what words to use in a mission 
statement :-)

Reader and the servant of readers,

Miriam Bobkoff                     work: mkbobkoff at santafenm.gov
Santa Fe Public Library            personal: mbobkoff at cybermesa.com
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Santa Fe, NM 87501
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