How to Respond to People Who Don’t Get Libraries
Snappy answers to the question, “Do libraries matter anymore?”
People misunderstand libraries. Most don’t do it deliberately; they haven’t thought much about the institution. A quick conversation is sometimes enough to bring them around.
There are, however, those who are purposefully mean about libraries. The reasons vary: Some had a horrible library experience as children, some are intimidated by anything intellectual, and some . . . well, some are just assholes. These people make me angry.
Why? Because librarians, as a group, are not people who seek hostile confrontation. Librarians build people up; we don’t tear them down. We interact with public-facing challenges daily and do our best to help them. So when some stranger or relative sarcastically diminishes a librarian’s work out of spite, I don’t want that librarian or their supporters to be tongue-tied in response. I want all librarians and library lovers to be able to defend libraries with vim and vigor!
When you’re sitting around the table and your slightly drunk uncle starts in on libraries and librarianship, you won’t convince him of anything. No matter how many statistics and examples you give him, his opinions are all but fossilized. Don’t worry about him.
Your goal is to teach the rest of the table about libraries and librarianship. Just tell him, “Bless your heart,” and aim to leave your audience better informed. One way to avoid getting thrown off by his potshots is to have some talking points in mind beforehand.
To that end, here are some of the most common questions about libraries and some quick answers:
“Do People Even Go to Libraries Anymore?”
I love this question. I answer it in almost every article I write. Here’s the short answer: “Are you kidding? According to the latest statistics, libraries in the United States are visited 1.4 billion times a year!” Sometimes, this will be followed up with something about the internet changing things. No worries, share this: Library Visits Have Gone Way Up Over the Last Two Decades. If, however, the follow-up is:
“Yeah, but Isn’t It All Just Homeless People These Days?”
All sorts of people come into the library for different reasons; young families come to get their kids excited about reading and help them develop fine motor skills, older adults come for computer classes and social interaction, and people of all ages come to develop job skills and search for jobs. All, including the homeless, must adhere to the same code of conduct and have the same rights to library service.
“Last Time I Was at the Library, All I Saw People Doing Was Surfing Facebook and Looking At Porn!”
That’s too bad. During the forty hours a week I spend at the library, I see people searching for jobs, researching for school, writing novels, communicating with faraway relatives (sometimes on Facebook!), and many more perfectly legal activities. It may be weird to look at porn in public, but it’s not illegal, and most libraries support free access to information. Starting to censor information is a slippery slope we wouldn’t want our country to go down.
“Libraries Are Only for [Kids], [Old Folks], [Poor People].”
Why? (Wait for an answer; it’ll be something silly, and then share one or two services that your library offers.) Libraries are great for kids, but we get plenty of adults attending our free classical music concert series — the last concert had an audience of forty people of all ages. Lots of non-kids also love our online language learning programs. Some people pay hundreds of dollars for Rosetta Stone because they don’t know they can get Mango Languages from libraries for free. When they find out, they’re stoked!
“That’s Great, but Won’t the Internet Solve All Those Problems? Soon, People Won’t Need Libraries.”
The internet is great! We show people how to use it all the time. Believe it or not, the average person is inefficient at online research. That’s why fake news is so popular! Librarians teach people of all ages how to find credible information tailored to that person’s needs. Google can’t tell the difference between a 10-year-old doing science homework and a 65-year-old searching for medical information; librarians can.
“Books Are All Going Digital. And No One Reads Anymore Anyway!”
You know libraries have been offering e-books for at least fifteen years, right? Readers, and there are plenty of them, have been using libraries to borrow digital materials at monumental rates for a while now. So I think if physical books go away, which they won’t for a long time, libraries will do just fine. And as far as reading goes, studies show that reading rates among all ages have fluctuated since the 1960s; while rates went down in the 90s and the early 2000s, they’ve been bouncing back up for the last ten years! People love reading!
“Speaking of Reading, I’d Love a Job Where I Could Sit Around and Read All Day!”
Me too! But librarians are too busy . . . [Choose one, or come up with your own] a) planning programs to get kids excited about science, b) teaching older adults how to avoid online scams, c) finding just the right story to get a kid who doesn’t like reading excited about books, d) helping students make it through their Ph.D. programs.
“Why Do You Need a Master’s Degree to Be a Librarian Anyway?”
For the same reason executives of large companies need MBAs, architects need a Masters of Architecture, and Doctors need an M.D.. There’s specialized knowledge that’s required to organize and navigate information. Library school teaches students to understand people’s information-seeking behavior, how to choose the right information-retrieval system, how best to structure searches within that system, and what metadata schema to use when cataloging books and other objects. We also learn about the reference interview. . . .
“How Hard Can It Be to Read Books to Kids?”
The reading part is easy if you’re not shy. The hard part is selecting the right books for each group, finding age-appropriate rhymes and songs, keeping the themes interesting, and staying excited several times a week for months. Because kids and parents know if you’re faking it, it’s not pretty. Also, you realize it’s a different program for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age kids, right? Most parents don’t understand early literacy development. Librarians do, which is why storytime is just as much for the parents as it is for kids.
“Isn’t It Nice to Have a Calm and Peaceful Job?”
The library is calm and peaceful . . . before we open and after we close. In between, it’s like most customer service jobs, except we help people with complicated, complex, and sometimes emotion-laden problems. Plus, frustrated and angry people come to libraries and take it out on library staff. Most librarians have been insulted, yelled at, propositioned, and more. Despite that, we do our best to assist people, and sometimes we manage to turn their day around. That’s a great feeling!
“You Need to Go to School to Learn to Shelve Books?”
Actually, shelving books at a library doesn’t require a master’s degree. Paraprofessionals or support staff usually do that. It’s like when you go to a doctor’s office — neither the people at the front desk nor the ones weighing you, taking your blood pressure, or drawing blood are doctors. Many people with different skills run a library, and only some are librarians.
“Why Should My Tax Dollars Pay for a Service I Don’t Use?”
You don’t drive on every mile of the road or every bridge. Should your tax dollars only be used to fix the roads or bridges you use? That’s not how taxes work. If they did, schools would close because people without kids would refuse to fund education, and police and fire departments would dissolve since most people rarely personally call the police or fire services. Some would refuse to fund the military. Taxes work for the common good, and libraries provide social and economic benefits, even for people who don’t use them. Libraries are a wise investment. (I cover this more in-depth in my article “Libraries Are Not Free, and They‘re Worth Every Dollar!”)
“I Can’t Believe You’re Getting Rid of Books; Why Would You Ever Do That?”
Public libraries balance space (often very limited) and the community’s needs in maintaining their collection. We usually remove books in bad condition to keep a vibrant and valuable collection for the general public. Books that are no longer current or haven’t been used in a long time make way for new titles that are in demand. Think about it this way: How useful is a handbook to investing in the stock market from the 1960s, a travel guide for a journey to the Soviet Union, or a ratty book about a fad diet from twenty years ago? While some books may have historical value, holding on to those books is the work of university libraries. Most library patrons don’t routinely explore how-to books on programming a 1970s mainframe computer.
“Why Can’t Volunteers Run the Library?”
(See above or “7 Insidious Myths About Libraries and Reading (the first two kill me).”)
They can if you manage to find enough competent, punctual, and consistent people to check items in and out; shelve them correctly; provide reference and book recommendation services (and not just for the genre one reads); handle materials purchasing and processing; run events for children, teens, and adults; manage bookkeeping and budgeting; schedule workers; and supervise building maintenance. Oh, did anyone think that libraries only had librarians? Tell that to the shelvers, circulation clerks, custodians, maintenance workers, human resource professionals, accountants, etc. While it’s not impossible, it’s a fairly tall order to engage volunteers to run a fully functioning library equivalent to one that is professionally staffed.
“You’re a Librarian? Why Don’t You Get a Real Job!”
I’m a librarian, buddy; I spend all day helping people. What do you do?
There you go, fifteen questions librarians and library lovers often face when interacting with naysayers. I suggest adapting these answers to your situation; include examples that apply to you or your library. Telling incisive impact stories of individuals helped is a terrific way to demonstrate the positive change librarians make in people’s lives. And if it starts getting too heated, put your hands up in protest and say in your best Robert De Niro voice, “What is this, an interrogation? Lemme eat my dinner in peace!”
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