Elizabeth Gilbert discusses her love of libraries
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the bestselling “Eat, Pray, Love,” talks about her experiences with libraries and librarians – and her love of libraries – in the following video.
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John Grisham discusses the value of libraries and librarians
John Grisham, author of “The Pelican Brief” and “The Firm,” among other novels, talked about libraries prior to his presentation at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
The video is currently being featured at @yourlibrary.org, the website for the American Library Association’s public awareness campaign —the Campaign for America’s Libraries, which highlights the value of libraries and librarians and connects people to the free resources at their local library.
Why the next big pop-culture wave after cupcakes might be libraries
Linda Holmes, who writes the NPR entertainment and pop-culture blog Monkey See, says libraries may be “standing on the edge of their pop culture moment: Librarians prepare.”
She writes: “… The very enjoyable Librarians Do Gaga video that everyone sent my way after the debut of the NPR Does Gaga video” captured her attention.
“And about the fact that a local news story skeptically questioning whether libraries are ‘necessary’ set off a response from Vanity Fair, and a later counterpunch by Chicago’s Public Library Commissioner won her support from such diverse, non-library-specific outlets as The A.V. Club and Metafilter, and from as far away as The Guardian.”
“Call it a hunch, but it seems to me that the thing is in the air that happens right before something — families with a million kids, cupcakes, wedding coordinators — suddenly becomes the thing everyone wants to do happy-fuzzy pop-culture stories about. Why?”
She cites the impact of libraries on a number of fronts including:
“Libraries get into a fight. Everybody likes a scrapper, and between the funding battles they’re often found fighting and the body-checking involved in their periodic struggles over sharing information, there’s a certain … pleasantly plucky quality to the current perception of libraries and librarians,” Holmes writes. She also highlights the following: “librarians know stuff, librarians are green and local, and libraries will give things for free.”
PR Forum slides are now available
Unable to attend this year’s PR Forum with Stephen Abram? Librarians interested in learning more about how to market and promote their libraries using new technologies can access Abram’s presentation, given at this year’s American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
Abram discussed his ideas on the role of social networking in library marketing and communications. He also talked about the new skills and competencies that library PR practitioners need. During his presentation, Abram provided librarians with an update on his 2007 PR Forum presentation, along with new ideas on how libraries can stay competitive in a Google world.
Abram’s PowerPoint presentation is available on Slideshare.
Abram is a leading library conference keynote speaker and vice president of strategic partnerships and markets for Gale Cengage. Abram previously presented at the PR Forum before a group of 350 people at the 2007 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
The annual PR Forum, one of the most anticipated programs for library public relations and marketing professionals at the ALA Annual Conference, is coordinated by the PR Assembly, Sonia A. Alcantara-Antoine, chair. The PR Assembly is a subcommittee of the ALA Public Awareness Committee.
The Campaign for America’s Libraries is ALA’s public awareness campaign that promotes the value of libraries and librarians. Thousands of libraries of all types – across the country and around the globe – use the Campaign’s @ your library® brand. The Campaign is made possible in part by ALA’s Library Champions, corporations and foundations.
Below is a short video clip of Abram’s presentation at this year’s ALA Annual Conference.
Op ed in Los Angeles Times: “U.S. public libraries: We lose them at our peril”
Libraries are an essential service in action, as well as an effective leveler of privilege and avenue of reinvention. As budget cuts affect more facilities, children will be the first to suffer.
By Marilyn Johnson
July 6, 2010
The U.S. is beginning an interesting experiment in democracy: We’re cutting public library funds, shrinking our public and school libraries, and in some places, shutting them altogether.
These actions have nothing to do with whether the libraries are any good or whether the staff provides useful service to the community. This country’s largest circulating library, in Queens, N.Y., was named the best system in the U.S. last year by Library Journal. Its budget is due to shrink by a third. Los Angeles libraries are being slashed, and beginning this week, the doors will be locked two days a week and at least 100 jobs cut. And until it got a six-month reprieve June 23, Siskiyou County almost became California’s only county without a public library. Such cuts and close calls are happening across the country. We won’t miss a third of our librarians and branch libraries the way we’d miss a third of our firefighters and firehouses, the rationale goes … but I wonder.
I’ve spent four years following librarians as they deal with the tremendous increase in information and the many ways we receive it. They’ve been adapting as capably as any profession, managing our public computers and serving growing numbers of patrons, but it seems that their work has been all but invisible to those in power. I’ve talked to librarians whose jobs have expanded with the demand for computers and training, and because so many other government services are being cut. The people left in the lurch have looked to the library, where kind, knowledgeable professionals help them navigate the government bureaucracy, apply for benefits, access social services. Public officials will tell you they love libraries and are committed to them; they just don’t believe they constitute a “core” service.
But if you visit public libraries, you will see an essential service in action, as librarians help people who don’t have other ways to get online, can’t get the answers they urgently need, or simply need a safe place to bring their children. I’ve stood in the parking lot of the Topeka and Shawnee County Library in Kansas on a Sunday morning and watched families pour through doors and head in all directions to do homework or genealogical research, attend computer classes, read the newspapers. I’ve stood outside New York city libraries with other self-employed people, waiting for the doors to open and give us access to the computers and a warm and affordable place to work. I’ve met librarians who serve as interpreters and guides to communities of cancer survivors, Polish-speaking citizens, teenage filmmakers, veterans.
The people who welcome us to the library are idealists, who believe that accurate information leads to good decisions and that exposure to the intellectual riches of civilization leads to a better world. The next Abraham Lincoln could be sitting in their library, teaching himself all he needs to know to save the country. While they help us get online, employed and informed, librarians don’t try to sell us anything. Nor do they turn around and broadcast our problems, send us spam or keep a record of our interests and needs, because no matter how savvy this profession is at navigating the online world, it clings to that old-fashioned value, privacy. (A profession dedicated to privacy in charge of our public computers? That’s brilliant.) They represent the best civic value out there, an army of resourceful workers that can help us compete in the world.
But instead of putting such conscientious, economical and service-oriented professionals to work helping us, we’re handing them pink slips. The school libraries and public libraries in which we’ve invested decades and even centuries of resources will disappear unless we fight for them. The communities that treasure and support their libraries will have an undeniable competitive advantage. Those that don’t will watch in envy as the Darien Library in Connecticut hosts networking breakfasts for its out-of-work patrons, and the tiny Gilpin County Public Library in Colorado beckons patrons with a sign that promises “Free coffee, Internet, notary, phone, smiles, restrooms and ideas.”
Those lucky enough to live in those towns, or those who own computers, or have high-speed Internet service and on-call technical assistance, will not notice the effects of a diminished public library system — not at first. Whizzes who can whittle down 15 million hits on a Google search to find the useful and accurate bits of info, and those able to buy any book or article or film they want, will escape the immediate consequences of these cuts.
Those in cities that haven’t preserved their libraries, those less fortunate and baffled by technology, and our children will be the first to suffer. But sooner or later, we’ll all feel the loss as one of the most effective levelers of privilege and avenues of reinvention — one of the great engines of democracy — begins to disappear.
Marilyn Johnson is the author of, most recently, “This Book Is Overdue!”
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
Chicago Public Library commissioner reacts to story on local television
Fox TV in Chicago recently ran a story titled, “Are Libraries Necessary, or a Waste of Tax Money?” Chicago Public Library Commissioner Mary Dempsey responded with a letter to the editor.
June 29, 2010
Anna Davlantes
Fox 32 news Chicago
WFLD – TV
205 N. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60601
Dear Ms. Davlantes:
I am astounded at the lack of understanding of public libraries that your Monday evening story, Are Libraries Necessary, or a Waste of Tax Money? revealed. Public libraries are more relevant and heavily used today than ever before, and public libraries are one of the better uses of the taxpayers’ dollars. Let me speak about the Chicago Public Library which serves 12 million visitors per year. No other cultural, educational, entertainment or athletic organization in Chicago can make that claim. Those 12 million visitors come to our libraries for free access to books, journals, research materials, online information and computers, reference assistance from trained librarians, early literacy programs, English as a second language assistance, job search assistance, after school homework help from librarians and certified teachers, best sellers in multiple formats (print, audio, downloadable and e-book), movies, music, author events, book clubs, story times, summer reading programs, financial literacy programs or simply a place to learn, dream and reflect.
The Chicago Public Library, through its 74 locations, serves every neighborhood of our city, is open 7 days per week at its three largest locations, 6 days per week at 71 branch libraries and 24/7 on its website which is filled with online research collections, downloadable content, reference help, and access to vast arrays of the Library’s holdings and information.
Last year, Chicagoans checked out nearly 10 million items from the Chicago Public Library’s 74 locations and the majority of those items were books. (Your ‘undercover cameras” shots were taken in a series of stacks devoted to bound periodicals used for reference. Next time, try looking at the circulating collections throughout the building.) Especially in times of economic downturn, smart people turn to the public library as their free resource for books, information and entertainment in multiple formats – print, online, in person.
And yes, we proudly provide free access to the internet because so much information today is found online, something you should know from your own work. In fact, the Chicago Public Library provided 3.8 million free one hour Internet sessions to the people of Chicago in 2009. The Internet has made public libraries more relevant, not less as your story suggests. There continues to exist in this country a vast digital divide. It exists along lines of race and class and is only bridged consistently and equitably through the free access provided by the Chicago Public Library and all public libraries in this nation. Some 60 percent of the individuals who use public computers a Chicago’s libraries are searching for and applying for jobs. We’re proud to continue to be able to use our resources to help them do so.
The Libraries vs. Schools or other public agencies funding argument posed by your story is a non-starter. The mission of the Chicago Public Library is and always has been to make available to all people from birth through senior citizenship, the resources they need to enjoy a good quality of life, to participate in lifelong learning, and to become and remain civically engaged. If information is power, then the public library is the source of that power,
We devote considerable effort and funding to providing early literacy books, programs , story times and training for parents, caregivers and preschool teachers of infants and toddlers so that those children start kindergarten ready to learn.
Chicago’s schools offer the shortest school day in the nation. As schools slash their budgets for school libraries and shorten their classroom teaching time, thousands of children flock to Chicago’s public libraries every day afterschool, in the evening and on weekends for homework assistance from our librarians and certified teachers hired by the public library.
In 2009, thanks to funding from the MacArthur Foundation, the Chicago Public Library unveiled a new 21st century learning space for teens called YOUmedia, that is heavily used 7 days a week by teens and has been hailed as a groundbreaking learning space that combines books and traditional library collections, digital media, mentors and librarians. YOUmedia fosters civic engagement, creativity, reading, writing, and collaborative learning by teens – and it takes place in the public library, not in a school.
We are at our busiest when schools are not in session. This summer, we will once again welcome some 50,000 children to our summer reading program. As in years past, they will read more than 1.2 million books thereby keeping their reading skills sharp while schools are closed, and this year, they will learn
about the collections of the Art Institute and public art throughout our city simply by participating in this free program.
The Chicago Public Library is used heavily throughout the year by college and university students, people moving into second careers, adult learners, small business owners, lawyers and other professionals, and working adults and seniors who simply want to read the latest bestseller, hear an author talk, participate in a book club or in the One Book, One Chicago program, attend a financial literacy class, enjoy a free visit to one of Chicago’s museums or the Ravinia Music Festival, or learn how to use a computer. Last week, more than 650 people of all ages attended a lecture by author Anthony Bourdain at Harold Washington Library Center and that is the norm, not the exception.
The suggestion by one of your interviewees that people do not need or use libraries anymore because of the Internet is simply not true. The Internet is one of the many tools that people use to live productive lives, and that tool can be accessed for free, and with free training by our staff, at the public library.
Finally, let me address the argument by the gentleman from the taxpayers’ group, that public sector employees make higher salaries than those in the private sector and that Chicago’s investment in its public libraries ($120 million annually) ins too high. He is simply wrong. With that budget, we pay the salaries of 1150 employees; maintain and operate 74 buildings; purchase new library collections and refresh worn collections; maintain and update 3000 public access computers; provide free Wifi [sic] and 24/7 access to millions of dollars of online research collections via our website; operate a citywide distribution system that handles millions of items per year; serve as an essential resource to homeschoolers, public, parochial, charter and private schools, colleges, and universities; operate a Talking Book Center for the blind and a physically handicapped; engage in reciprocal borrowing of library materials with 192 other communities in the State of Illinois; provide free access for Library patrons to Chicago’s museums and cultural institutions; support Chicago’s businesses and entrepreneurs; support Chicago’s research community; and enhance quality of life and community in every neighborhood of Chicago.
The public library is supported by taxpayers for the common good of all the people of Chicago – just like public school. We don’t ask our schools to make profit. Neither should we ask it of the public library. As journalist Walter Cronkite once remarked, “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
Finally, like thousands of our fellow City employees, the management of the Chicago Public Library is taking 24 unpaid holidays and furlough days this year to help close the budget gap and to keep city services, including libraries, operating for the public. Interestingly, I was on an unpaid furlough day when I watched your story last evening. And I had just returned from the annual library conference in Washington DC, a trip I paid for myself, not with taxpayer dollars.
Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to respond to the issues raised in your story.
Sincerely,
Mary A. Dempsey
Commissioner
Chicago Public Library
