Libraries, What Are They Good For?

When I was 16-years-old, I spent a semester working in the high school library for class credit.  This is how old I am now - public schools actually had libraries and librarians back in those days!  The librarian (who was educated in France, and I'm convinced working at my high school as penance for something she did in a past life) actually taught me stuff.  I learned to use the reference collection.  I also learned to tackle the computer, back in the days when databases were on those new-fangled things called CD-ROMs.  I really loved it, and heck - I loved to read - so yeah, librarian was it for me.  Little did I know at the time, and what my high school librarian failed to tell me, was that I was going to choose a career that was going to require me to justify my right to exist.  My existence is one I often need to explain to your average layperson, countless politicians, people who think it's my one true mission in life to expose children to Internet porn, and now, apparently authors.

I never thought I'd see the day where authors (not all of you - just the idiot ones) would see libraries as The Problem.  This is what digital has done to us folks.  It has turned authors (not all of you - just the idiot ones) stupid.  Case in point, Scott Turow's op-ed piece in the New York Times, which as far as I can tell was his chance to vent without offering up any solutions, even theoretical ones.

This is something else my high school librarian failed to inform me of - as a public librarian I cannot stop buying authors for public consumption just because they're asshats.  So yeah, I'm still buying Mr. Turow's books "on the job" - all the while sticking pins in my little-suspense-writer-voodoo-doll that I now keep at my desk.  Bother.

Maureen Sullivan, current president of the American Library Association, responded to Turow's screed in a succinct, eloquent manner which further illustrates why Wendy will never be president of anything.  You should read her whole response, but the take-away from it really is this:

"Libraries want to buy your work at a reasonable price so that we may continue to grow readers — and writers — in the digital age"

In one sentence Ms. Sullivan tells everybody what libraries do.  We "grow readers."  A functioning, and hopefully informed, society is a literate one.  With no libraries, what do you think happens to literacy?  We're already seeing some of this with children.  Kids who go to school every day with no librarian in their public school.  Information literacy?  Who needs that?  Teaching our children to reason, deduce, investigate, research?  Who needs that?  And now we have authors like Mr. Turow taking aim at public libraries when the sad fact is he should be embracing us.

I'm not sure if everyone got the memo - but Borders went out of business.  Barnes & Noble is sailing towards an iceberg (and giving up floor space to games and toys!).  Walmart will display what it damn well pleases, and heaven knows their sole business is not books.  Independent booksellers?  OK, yeah - they're still around.  But how many of them are displaying genre fiction?  Science fiction, romance, mystery, fantasy?  Oh sure, there are a few specialized independents out there that cater to genre readers, but will you find one in Podunk Middle Of Nowhere?  Hell, in many cases, in a decent-sized city?  Not necessarily.  But you know what you will find?

Yeah, a library.

Guess what - we have shelves.  We have actual display spaces.  We talk to people, all kinds of people!  We engage, we program, we hand-sell.  We are not only breeding readers, we are sustaining them.  We are not only keeping your audience alive, we are creating whole new audiences.  Sure, that 16-year-old kid who is using the library to feed their reading habit isn't likely going to hit the bookstore every week to stock up on books.  But you know what?  What happens when that 16-year-old kid grows up?  Gets a job?  Gets a career?  Gets some disposable income?  Betcha they buy some books!

Libraries aren't the problem.  We've never been the problem.  We love authors.  We love books.  We love reading.  Everything we do on this job (from "game days" to "computer classes") is geared towards growing readers.  To promoting literacy.  Because you know what?  We're whores.  We'll do just about anything to get people in the door, where they can walk into the library and see your books on our shelves.  We want them to find your books, read your books, fall in love with your books, and maybe ::gasp:: start buying your books.

In the aftermath of all of this brain-bleed-inducing nonsense I've been struck by two things.  One is the full-page ad that James Patterson recently took out in the New York Times Book Review.  Like Turow, Patterson doesn't offer any answers - but he also doesn't do a lot of half-assed finger-pointing either.  He asks a lot of questions.  And he's smart enough to not look at libraries and see us as The Problem.  (Probably because we aren't - but whatever).  Mr. Patterson, I salute you!  I promise not to make anymore jokes about Writing Sweat Shops for at least....a couple of days (seriously, I'm only human).

I was also reminded of something Kerrelyn Sparks said when she was the luncheon speaker at Librarians Day at RWA in Anaheim last year.  Sparks was giving the librarians in attendance a little of her life story, which in a nutshell is Crappy Childhood followed by Crappy Marriage.  Sparks also spent a decent chunk of this previous life (oh, like all of it) being strapped financially.  She loved to read, and needed to read, in order to escape the crappiness of her daily life during those years.  I'm paraphrasing wildly here, but in a nutshell?

"The people who need books the most are the ones who cannot afford them."

And that, ladies and gents, is the truth.  It's always been the truth.  Whether it's just escaping into a "happy place" away from their troubles, or it's because those books will allow them to learn a new skill, better themselves, and strive towards a better existence.  Books should be, and always have been for me, about lifting people up.  Libraries were put on the face of this Earth (OK, at least in the US) for that most American of reasons:

To level the playing field.

That's what libraries do.  Librarians do not snatch food out of the mouths of authors and their children.  Librarians do not look for ways to circumvent copyright, tear down authors, and send them careening into the nearest gutter.  Librarians are here as partners.  We're partners to readers, old and new alike, and to authors.  We want to help you.  We want you to succeed.  It would be nice if the idiot authors wanted the same thing for us.

Sincerely,
Wendy, Queen Librarian Of The Universe