I did a year of SLIS at UW-Madison ten years ago, and was looking forward to my second and final year and a career in the stacks when circumstances intervened, as they sometimes will. I like imagining, now and again, going back. Sorry to sound smarmy, but it’s always struck me as the noblest possible profession.

So anyways, thanks. I hope you’ll check back here now and again, to see if others have responses to your comments.

Some random thoughts:

I could write so much about this topic (on edit: and oh, I did!). First of all, though, you went to library school? I didn’t know that.

The school I went to some twenty years ago lost its ALA seal of approval (UC Berkeley) about ten years ago because it went into information as pure pursuit and lost interest in libraries.

At any rate, twenty years ago we were worried that libraries were going away, but they have not.

Information vs. library as place: this is a divide that I see in my colleagues. Some have a huge interest in information and remote access, Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, Second Life, all very old discussions now in the library world; I’ve met some Silicon Valley librarians and they are much plugged in to the information frontiers there; it is the center of the library world, if one exits. San Jose State, in the heart of the information valley, is, I think, probably the leading light in library education today. It has recently eliminated its “on site” classes for completely online coursework. The new librarians I hire all have gone there and they are super-techy and overtrained for what they are asked to do, but then again, I think I was the same way when I got out of school. I had to teach one of my librarians how to do reader’s advisory (book suggestions) for kids’ books by just suggesting that she think of books she herself read as a kid; at the same time she can build a database. I adapt and have adapted over time to all changing forms of information forms and their retrieval; the cyber life of libraries is interesting to me but boring after a while–because libraries adapt to information “frames,” if you will. and always have: papyrus, books, computers, eBooks, audiobooks, eAudio books, etc. Libraries are very adaptable and always have been.

My interest in the last few years of my twenty year career in public libraries is the library as a space–sometimes referred to as a “third space” where people can go to read, think, work, talk, have meetings, story times, talk about books and ideas, etc. A place to sit. It sounds really mundane and dull and does not seem to interest some of my colleagues at all but I think it is of huge value to the culture.

I manage a large regional public library: 30,00 square feet, 38 staff members. Our circulation statistics have gone way up since the recession started, but it was very busy anyway: in July of this year we had over 60,000 people come in the door versus 45,000 this month last year; last year we checked out some 60,000 items and this year we are looking at 75,000! In 31 days. We have 34 computers and they are almost always in use, as well as wireless access; we are very busy as a place to work–many people are giving up internet access and are looking for jobs, but they were there last year and the year before that–just not in quite as staggering of numbers.

We also help them find whatever it is they want. The public library is a lifeline to people, it is the place to study for the many first generation Americans who come to our building. I feel strongly that it adds value to the life of the community and to the lives of all Americans. I truly feel inspired by its “democratic vistas” every day of my life. The world walks through the door–every kind of human being you can think of, and I love that about the place. Finally, you would be surprised at the conversations people have with librarians! It is like being a hairdresser or bartender–and I love that part of the job. It is a people job.

Libraries, at least public libraries, are busy and active places. Libraries are corny, not hip; they’re without mood music and cute merchandise and all that–like one might find in a cool bookstore or a coffee shop. On the other hand, we make sure that we provide service to kids who want to play online games even if adults complain about it, we offer book clubs to old women that no one wants to talk to (take offense at that, but it’s true and they’ve told me so); we offer ESL and literacy classes, we save people money on their entertainment and scholarly pursuits and so much more.

I have recently read a Pew study that said, surprisingly, that younger people (in their 30’s) use libraries more than do people my age (late 40’s and up) and older. This probably has to do with the fact that they are revisiting for kids’ homework purposes. Not all of them will keep coming to the library, but many of them will. Often this person begins her visit by saying, “I haven’t been in a library in twenty years” and now she is back, because she is helping her kid with homework. To me, that is the point that I try very hard to make her feel welcome and at home–and often that person becomes a regular–or her kid becomes a library user.

I have always loved libraries, all kinds of them, enjoyed them at the universities I attended; there is just a great feeling in them. It is an indescribable feeling. On the other hand, I know many, many people who never use them and never did, even when their bookish lives were likely to propel them there–and I think it will always be that way. Our summer reading program had 2,000 kids sign up this summer, and some of them will never come back, but some will come back next year, and the year after, and in ten, twenty, thirty years, as I did, because I love the place as well as the information–whatever form it takes.

Thanks for giving me a forum.

http://jacketmagazine.com/35/bosnia-diary.shtml

Kent

On a personal note, I still love books, but I find more and more use for digital formats. It is more green, takes less space and highly portable. I recently purchased a blackberry and have downloaded “The Wasteland” & “Tender Buttons” via Project Gutenburg and read while walking the dog. Love being able to check out (literally) the old stuff on my BB on pure whim and read right there in the park. The book will always have its place, but digital will certainly be the choice of the upcoming generations. They are the one’s asking about Kindle at the library.

Graduating from HS was a complete release for me, and the subsequent years in college were my most eye-opening and prolific. Some of the best and most enlightening experiences I had were at UNH’s diamond library: in the basement discovering the foundations of American Routes music in the media center, or hopping from one floor to another to compare the journals of Columbus and De Soto. Something about walking into that building out of the cold Durham, N.H. air and into the atmosphere of that library just can’t be recreated.

Granted, I wasn’t a top student, but I fell in love with reading and writing in my college years, and now both are a huge irreversible part of who I am. I wasn’t academically enthusiastic on the level of some overachievers, but some of the most brilliant minds in the past century and further didn’t even go to college, so I considered myself lucky, and if there was any spot in which I could find solace for educational purposes, it was the Diamond Library.

…I dare propose a solution to the ancient problem: The Library is infinite and recurrent. If a traveler were to continue far enough in any direction, he would find after many centuries that the same volumes would repeat themselves in the same random order (which, repeated, would be an order: the Order). My solitude rejoices in this elegant hope.

—Jorge Luis Borges, “The Library of Babel”