I was at a fundraising event over the weekend for a charity here in New London. A man, who I've known for about 5 or 6 years, came up to me and said "What gives, you went from this high powered high flying career to this quiet little job." Of course I was seething a bit inside but I laughed it off and I said to him "(Guy's Name), if you think libraries are quiet you haven't been in one in a while." He laughed, I laughed and then I proceeded to tell him about how our circulation statistics are up 10% and our computer usage statistics are up 30%. And on and on. He thought this was really very impressive and said as much but I doubt, that at the end of the day, I really changed his mind. I've had this happen a hundred times. The problem is, I can't change people's minds on my own. They see me and what I used to be and they can't understand how I could be affiliated with a profession that, in their eyes, is dying or dead.
This drives me absolutely insane. We've got a problem in this profession, an identity crisis of sorts, and I for one am not willing to go along for the ride. Something needs to be done right now to change the public image of libraries and librarians. Maybe I'm being selfish, maybe it's just me who wants people to stop looking at me like I lost my mind when I went to graduate school. Maybe it's not though. Maybe this is the only way to save the field. We have to remember that the people who vote are the people who decide the monetary future of libraries. And I'm telling you, the people I'm talking to vote. If they're not on our side, we're in big trouble. In the next few weeks I'm going to outline my plan. Here's a brief preview. Perhaps to change as I go along. 1. Learn from Google's motto: stupid people need not apply. How this impacts our graduate schools and our job market. 2. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. 3. and another thing, stop doing things for the sake of doing them. 4. No one cares about your statistics. 5. Professionalize. And I don't mean that everyone who works in a library needs an MLS. 6. Organize. Advocate. Be political. This could grow or change as I go along but, in general, these are the things I've been thinking about since day one. And you'll notice that none of these categories talks about e-books or streaming or different content. This is because I don't think that there is anything fundamentally wrong with the structure of a library and the services that we're offering. In fact, I think that we're doing really pretty well. Let's put it this way, my circulation stats are up 10%, my computer stats are up 30% and yet my budget is down 7%. This isn't right. If we don't rethink how were doing things, how we're presenting ourselves and our case to the world then, eventually, we're going to write ourselves out of a job and our communities will suffer for it. What would you add to this list?
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