Molly Raphael interviewed on The Huffington Post
"Each library has to pay attention to the community that it serves and make strategic decisions about where it should be going and how it should be allocating resources." -- Molly Raphael
Molly Raphael is interviewed by C. M. Rubin, author of The Real Alice in Wonderland Book, in a recent article on The Huffington Post. Raphael, the current president of the American Library Association, explains some of the difficult strategic decisions that libraries face as they attempt to integrate new technology (like e-books) into their collections. She emphasizes the extent to which librarians monitor their individual community’s needs and aspirations to make decisions about allocating their increasingly tight budgets.
The interview, based in part on Molly Raphael’s recent speech at the Missouri Library Association’s annual conference, provides some nice background about libraries in the form of a list: “10 important things you need to know about our American libraries.”
Did you know, for instance, that “Americans spend more than twice as much on candy as they do on public libraries” or that “reference librarians in the nation’s public and academic libraries answer nearly 5.7 million questions weekly?”
Read the full text: “How Will We Read: In Public Libraries?”
Library supporters and Americans who value their libraries owe a debt of gratitude to The Huffington Post, which has regularly published op-eds and articles promoting the value of libraries.
The site even has a special news page titled “Libraries in Crisis,” which is “dedicated to understanding why (our nation’s libraries appear to be under threat), and following what people on all sides are doing about it.”
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