Onward and Downward
Over the Christmas break, I had a discussion with my mom about the public library in the town where I grew up in Michigan. Last I heard, because of a lack of funds and the most recent election, its doors are closing for good in June of this year. I was interesting in brainstorming about ways in which the library's fate might be stopped or, at the very least, stalled for a while.
I'm always interested in these kinds of talks. Given the town where I grew up, I'm sure the people on the board of directors of the library are creative, but there's a limit to what they're allowed to do. And the members of the city council probably weren't trying too hard to imagine ways to save the library.
So, are there any guerrilla publicity tactics that could be used by an independent, passionate citizen to generate some attention and possibly keep the library open?
After throwing around a few random ideas, though, we eventually got around to asking a pretty important question: should we even bother trying to save the library?
I'm aware that there are groups of people who rely on the library as a place to use the Internet, get books and magazines, and go to study before large exams. But when I started to think about the library itself, from a utilitarian perspective, maybe it's not worth the money it would take to keep it open.
This sounds like a radical thought (or an ultra-conservative one, if you please), but if you think about most public libraries, their function hasn't changed a whole lot over the past century. The way they're organized, the check-out policies and late fees, customer service...no public library I've ever been in has been a beacon for innovation. If they weren't a publicly-funded utility, and were instead a for-profit business reliant on customer loyalty, most libraries are slow-moving dinosaurs that would have been wiped out ages ago. (See also: the post office.)
Maybe the net benefit to society as a whole doesn't outweigh the what they're costing. I pose that question as someone who truly, deeply hates bean counters. I'm not talking strictly about dollars and cents here. Maybe the utility afforded the public by a public library isn't always worth the trouble that goes into it. Maybe its an inefficient system that's outdated and needs to be overhauled. The question of a cost-benefit comparison is often overshadowed by the insistence of sticklers for tradition, even in the absence of any actual good reason.
The library is in trouble in part because of the rise of alternatives to physical books: namely, the Internet and e-readers. I'm not saying the Internet replaces the library for everyone. But what happens when the Kindle becomes a commodity and you can go to Goodwill and buy a used one for ten bucks? What does the world look like in ten years from now?
And one other problem with staying mired into tradition, with keeping things as is, is that it means that the status quo doesn't get out of the way and let something else take its place. If the library closes, then maybe that means society eventually, after adjusting itself, moves forward.
I'm not saying this is a good thing. The sudden hole where the library system used to be is going to be a pain point for hundreds of people. But in that gap lies opportunity. Like most government systems, the operational effectiveness of the library was always merely "good enough". If someone had the bright idea of making the library look more like Netflix for books, as a way of saving overhead, no one at the city would have gone for it, because it's too weird of an idea. It's not conventional enough.
I'm not saying good riddance to the library. If you live in Troy and can save the library from closing, I encourage you to run, not walk, in doing so. But I'm a fatalist, and if it's going to happen anyway, I'm curious who's going to stand up and do something in the aftermath.
I'm always interested in these kinds of talks. Given the town where I grew up, I'm sure the people on the board of directors of the library are creative, but there's a limit to what they're allowed to do. And the members of the city council probably weren't trying too hard to imagine ways to save the library.
So, are there any guerrilla publicity tactics that could be used by an independent, passionate citizen to generate some attention and possibly keep the library open?
After throwing around a few random ideas, though, we eventually got around to asking a pretty important question: should we even bother trying to save the library?
I'm aware that there are groups of people who rely on the library as a place to use the Internet, get books and magazines, and go to study before large exams. But when I started to think about the library itself, from a utilitarian perspective, maybe it's not worth the money it would take to keep it open.
This sounds like a radical thought (or an ultra-conservative one, if you please), but if you think about most public libraries, their function hasn't changed a whole lot over the past century. The way they're organized, the check-out policies and late fees, customer service...no public library I've ever been in has been a beacon for innovation. If they weren't a publicly-funded utility, and were instead a for-profit business reliant on customer loyalty, most libraries are slow-moving dinosaurs that would have been wiped out ages ago. (See also: the post office.)
Maybe the net benefit to society as a whole doesn't outweigh the what they're costing. I pose that question as someone who truly, deeply hates bean counters. I'm not talking strictly about dollars and cents here. Maybe the utility afforded the public by a public library isn't always worth the trouble that goes into it. Maybe its an inefficient system that's outdated and needs to be overhauled. The question of a cost-benefit comparison is often overshadowed by the insistence of sticklers for tradition, even in the absence of any actual good reason.
The library is in trouble in part because of the rise of alternatives to physical books: namely, the Internet and e-readers. I'm not saying the Internet replaces the library for everyone. But what happens when the Kindle becomes a commodity and you can go to Goodwill and buy a used one for ten bucks? What does the world look like in ten years from now?
And one other problem with staying mired into tradition, with keeping things as is, is that it means that the status quo doesn't get out of the way and let something else take its place. If the library closes, then maybe that means society eventually, after adjusting itself, moves forward.
I'm not saying this is a good thing. The sudden hole where the library system used to be is going to be a pain point for hundreds of people. But in that gap lies opportunity. Like most government systems, the operational effectiveness of the library was always merely "good enough". If someone had the bright idea of making the library look more like Netflix for books, as a way of saving overhead, no one at the city would have gone for it, because it's too weird of an idea. It's not conventional enough.
I'm not saying good riddance to the library. If you live in Troy and can save the library from closing, I encourage you to run, not walk, in doing so. But I'm a fatalist, and if it's going to happen anyway, I'm curious who's going to stand up and do something in the aftermath.