I can only imagine what it is like working at a library right now, Johnny. About 6 months ago, a suburb near me (Troy, MI) actually decided to completely close down their library. This is not a small town we're talking about: Troy is one of the larger suburbs of Detroit, and one of the wealthier ones too. Well, it's no Grosse Pointe or anything like that, but Troy has a decent tax base thanks to a huge mall, plenty of offices, and even some industrial zones, but the economy is so bad here in Michigan that the town's leaders decided they could not even keep the library open on reduced hours anymore. This was not some old, decrepit library either. While it wasn't brand new, the library wasn't that old and certainly had all the modern attributes you'd expect at today's library. The closing only caused a mild ripple in the general community--mainly because everyone here is pretty much numb from the thousands of closings of every kind that have happened here in the past decade--but at my ex-employer, the closing sent shock waves through pretty much every department. To see a library of that size in a town that vibrant simply close down . . . well, it set off some real alarm bells (not that there weren't plenty going off already).
On the flip side of that closing, we had a primary election in Michigan on Tuesday in advance of the November governor's race, and I noticed that quite a few local millages were also on the ballot. I was pleasantly surprised to see that in every town where there was a millage request specifically for library funding, those requests were approved by the voters, some by a wide margin. I definitely did not expect to see that, as recent library funding votes have largely been voted down. Folks are at the breaking point, and unfortunately they often see libraries as a luxury that they think their towns just can't afford right now (and I don't blame anyone for thinking that, which shows how bad things are here).
I do believe that, despite the move away from paper books, periodicals, and newspapers, libraries will continue to survive and, honestly, I think they can even thrive in this increasingly tech-driven society. It won't be easy, but the folks who watch such things have seen many positive signs amidst all the chaos. Libraries that are being very pro-active and progressive and carving out a niche as a community gathering point and information repository (with no attention paid to whether the information is on paper or arrives in electronic form) are managing to really do well, or, at the very least, are keeping the wolves at bay and managing to hold their own. There's no doubt that today's library and the library of the future are going to be drastically different from the library we remember from our childhood, but that isn't automatically a bad thing.
I realize I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, and from the sound of things, whatever is happening at your library is not reflecting the sunshine and light future that I just talked about in that last paragraph. Unfortunately, it sounds like you're seeing the flip side of the coin and that your library is really struggling right now. Needless to say, given my background, it really, really saddens me to hear that, Johnny. If you feel like it, and have time, drop me a line here and let me know just what's going on, and what the future looks like for your library.
So sorry to hear that things aren't going well at work--I hope that things get turned around somehow, my friend.
Brad
