National Library Week

Folks, it’s National Library Week. I had a normal video thing made by the ALA to share with you, until I searched “Library” on Vimeo. This is a beautiful (and to me, haunting) video of Kahn’s Exeter library.


















As I said above, I find this video stunning in its cinematography and representation of that amazing space, but it really haunts me, because it lacks the two things that “make” a library - people and information (in the case of the Exeter library: books). Perhaps this is more what the ALA should be focusing on this year during National Library Week: how more people are using libraries, which have dwindling resources to offer their patrons. If things continue in this mode of cost-cutting, we could end up with spaces like the empty Exeter building. Where, then, would people satisfy their information needs? Google? Yeah, because that really does replace a person. Who will help cut through all the chatter and noise in the information world? Bing? Yahoo? Wikipedia?

No, it’s librarians, and the information at our command - the internet, ebooks, periodicals, and yes even books. The ALA really missed an opportunity this week, I think to highlight they key role that librarians play in our society. The role that all librarians have, no matter what their title might be - as stated in the ALA’s Code of Ethcs (which should get more publicity in itself):

We significantly influence or control the selection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information. In a political system grounded in an informed citizenry, we are members of a profession explicitly committed to intellectual freedom and the freedom of access to information. We have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations.

I can see a whole marketing campaign extolling the virtues of the librarian, not of the resources in a library. Yes, there are some amazing things in libraries - but what makes a library a library are the librarians. Highlight our impact on the people in our communities, highlight our ethics, and highlight our necessity. Instead, the ALA has conveniently given us this handy pre-written press release:

(CITY, STATE) – It’s National Library Week, a time to celebrate the contributions of libraries, librarians and library workers in schools, campuses and communities nationwide.

The [name of library] is celebrating National Library Week by [describe programs, activities here].

“Libraries are the heart of every community and our library helps our community thrive,” says [name and title of spokesperson]. “At our library, people of all backgrounds come together for community meetings, lectures and programs, to do research with the assistance of a trained professional, to get help finding a job or to find homework help […add resources/activities that you would like to highlight].”

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April.

For more information, visit the [name of library] at [address], call [phone number] or see the library’s Web site at [provide URL]. Libraries hours are [list times].

Do libraries as a whole really lack any kind of stories about real impact that the ALA feels that it must create a press release? Scary.

How have librarians affected your life? How, do you think, should the ALA alter its message for National Library Week?