[Publib] Wall Street Journal Weighs In On Public Libraries

Wed Jan 3 17:46:56 EST 2007

If you look at the author of the article's credentials, he works for the National Review (a conservative magazine).  His book "A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America" is about the Olin Foundation which describes itself as follows:

"New York-based John M. Olin Foundation, which grew out of a family manufacturing business (chemical and munitions), funds right-wing think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution and Peace. It also gives large sums of money to promote conservative programs in the country's most prestigious colleges and universities."

I think his point is in keeping with his philosophy.
Personally I don't see why libraries can't keep the "classics" and modern fiction, though I'm sure we could have a long wrangle about what is or isn't a "classic".  (Of course my library has 3 copies of Dr. Faustus by Marlowe :))

Kathy Bloomberg-Rissman
Director
Upland Public Library
Upland, CA

-----Original Message-----
From: publib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:publib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Kathleen McCorkle
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 2:01 PM
To: PubLib; KM Denny
Subject: Re: [Publib] Wall Street Journal Weighs In On Public Libraries

""public and one that merely uses tax dollars to subsidize the recreational
habits of bookworms.""

Since we live in an area that has no bookstore, (85 mile round trip)
Hemingway is a little advanced for children and the seniors have already
read it,
are we now supposed to tell people what they can read?
I always thought libraries were so people could afford to read and practice
does make us better readers.
Many people in our area do buy books but most can not afford that luxury.
I wonder what will be considered classics in another 50 years?
I am admitting I love to read so is that bad?
I admit I am confused.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "KM Denny" <kaymdenny at hotmail.com>
To: <plgnet-l at listproc.sjsu.edu>
Cc: <publib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 3:33 PM
Subject: [Publib] Wall Street Journal Weighs In On Public Libraries

> January 3, 2007
>
>
>
> Should Libraries' Target Audience Be
> Cheapskates With Mass-Market Tastes?
> By JOHN J. MILLER
> January 3, 2007; Page D9
>
> "For Whom the Bell Tolls" may be one of Ernest Hemingway's best-known
books,
> but it isn't exactly flying off the shelves in northern Virginia these
days.
> Precisely nobody has checked out a copy from the Fairfax County Public
> Library system in the past two years, according to a front-page story in
> yesterday's Washington Post.
>
> And now the bell may toll for Hemingway. A software program developed by
> SirsiDynix, an Alabama-based library-technology company, informs
librarians
> of which books are circulating and which ones aren't. If titles remain
> untouched for two years, they may be discarded -- permanently. "We're
being
> very ruthless," boasts library director Sam Clay.
>
> As it happens, the ruthlessness may not ultimately extend to Hemingway's
> classic. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" could win a special reprieve, and, in
the
> future, copies might remain available at certain branches. Yet lots of
other
> volumes may not fare as well. Books by Charlotte Brontë, William Faulkner,
> Thomas Hardy, Marcel Proust and Alexander Solzhenitsyn have recently been
> pulled.
>
> Library officials explain, not unreasonably, that their shelf space is
> limited and that they want to satisfy the demands of the public. Every
> unpopular book that's removed from circulation, after all, creates room
for
> a new page-turner by John Grisham, David Baldacci, or James Patterson -- 
the
> authors of the three most checked-out books in Fairfax County last month.
>
> But this raises a fundamental question: What are libraries for? Are they
> cultural storehouses that contain the best that has been thought and said?
> Or are they more like actual stores, responding to whatever fickle taste
or
> Mitch Albom tearjerker is all the rage at this very moment?
>
> If the answer is the latter, then why must we have government-run
libraries
> at all? There's a fine line between an institution that aims to edify the
> public and one that merely uses tax dollars to subsidize the recreational
> habits of bookworms.
>
> Fairfax County may think that condemning a few dusty old tomes allows it
to
> keep up with the times. But perhaps it's inadvertently highlighting the
fact
> that libraries themselves are becoming outmoded.
>
> There was a time when virtually every library was a cultural repository
> holding priceless volumes. Imagine how much richer our historical and
> literary record would be if a single library full of unique volumes -- the
> fabled Royal Library of Alexandria, in Egypt -- had survived to the
present
> day.
>
> As recently as a century ago, when Andrew Carnegie was opening thousands
of
> libraries throughout the English-speaking world, books were considerably
> more expensive and harder to obtain than they are right now. Carnegie
always
> credited his success in business to the fact that he could borrow books
from
> private libraries while he was growing up. His philanthropy meant to
provide
> similar opportunities to later generations.
>
> Today, however, large bookstore chains such as Barnes & Noble and Borders
> bombard readers with an enormous range of inexpensive choices. An even
> greater selection is available online: Before it started selling mouthwash
> and power tools, Amazon.com used to advertise itself as "the world's
biggest
> bookstore." It still probably deserves the label, even though there are
now
> a wide variety of competing retailers. (Full disclosure: Years ago, I was
a
> paid reviewer for Amazon.com.)
>
> The reality is that readers have never enjoyed a bigger market for books.
> Shoppers can buy everything from hot-off-the-press titles in mint
condition
> to out-of-print rarities from secondhand dealers. They can even download
> audiobooks to their MP3 players and listen to them while jogging or
driving
> to work. Companies such as Google and Microsoft are promising to make
> enormous amounts of out-of-copyright material available to anyone with a
> computer and a browser.
>
> The bottom line is that it has never been easier or cheaper to read a
book,
> and the costs of reading probably will do nothing but drop further.
>
> 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.
>
> Instead of embracing this doomed model, libraries might seek to
> differentiate themselves among the many options readers now have, using a
> good dictionary as the model. Such a dictionary doesn't merely describe
the
> words of a language -- it provides proper spelling, pronunciation and
usage.
> 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.
>
> The alternative is for them to morph into clerks who fill their shelves
with
> whatever their "customers" want, much as stock boys at grocery stores do.
> Both libraries and the public, however, would be ill-served by such a
> Faustian bargain.
>
> That's a reference, by the way, to one of literature's great antiheroes.
> Good luck finding Christopher Marlowe's play about him in a Fairfax County
> library: "Doctor Faustus" has survived for more than four centuries, but
it
> apparently hasn't been checked out in the past 24 months.
>
> Mr. Miller writes for National Review and is the author of "A Gift of
> Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America" (Encounter
Books).
>
>   URL for this article:
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116778551807865463.html
>
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