Dehumanizing Public Libraries

Writer Miriam Karmel has composed a sad essay about public libraries, which was published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune of December 11th. I first saw a mention of her article on the message board of the Conservative Librarians' Yahoo Group. I don't think the situation is as dire as she suggests, but I too have noticed that many public libraries have reduced the number of professionals they employee. That sorry trend has resulted in public libraries that are distinctly less user friendly. This is something the American Library Association should be doing more about.

I'm reprinting her remarks:

Libraries Have Lost More Than Funding
Once we had librarians who knew our names; now we have guards, who don't.
by Miriam Karmel

"When my children were young and we were all at loose ends, I'd bundle them up and off we'd go to the Walker Library. We knew the name of the children's librarian, and he knew ours. When we walked through the door, Tom would look up from his desk and wave, as if he'd been expecting us.

At the circulation desk, I talked with Shelly about the books I was checking out, or she'd recommend a particular favorite of hers. We exchanged pleasantries about the weather.
I checked out my own books the last time I went to the library -- the new downtown designer library with the cantilevered stairways, brushed-steel door handles, and the center atrium that, one reporter said, "forces you to look heavenward." In fact, my only human encounter was with a guard who stopped me as I entered the main floor circulation room. I had mistakenly tried entering through the exit.

After locating the correct entrance, I found my books, checked them out on a computer, then stood in line to wait my turn for the guard -- the one who had rebuffed my entry -- to check that I wasn't walking off with the goods. I don't know the guard's name, and he doesn't know mine, though I suppose he would have asked had I tried pilfering a book.

I would have gone to my branch library, but it was closed that day. The Walker is one of the lucky branches that haven't been scheduled for mothballing. It will remain open, though its hours have been cut back. So has its staff, which means I check out my own books now. Nobody knows my name.

When the cutbacks started a few years ago, library staff and patrons put together a cookbook to raise money to buy back laid-off staff. I bought a copy of "Food for Thought" from an off-duty librarian named Kate who had set up a table in a corner of the Walker. She reminded me of a PTA mom selling brownies to fund art classes and field trips. Kate sold five copies that afternoon, but was unperturbed. The cookbook, she said, was a way of raising awareness of the library's plight. Besides, she said, "It feels like we're doing something."

Something is supposed to be better than nothing, but it's going to take more than cookbooks to fix a system that swoons over brushed steel and cantilevers, and replaces librarians with guards."