I read an article last week on the National Public Radio website titled “Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries.” Who knew cupcakes were at high-tide? Then, again, who doesn’t love ‘em? Can’t the same be said for libraries?
The reasons listed in the article for the growing popularity of libraries are as follows:
Libraries get in fights. Libraries stand up for your rights to information and your right to privacy about the information you seek. Libraries stand up to the powers-that-be for adequate funding to provide you with the goods and services you require. Apparently today’s librarians have a “pleasantly plucky” quality.
Librarians know stuff. The article states that as the words “geek” and “nerd” have lost their negative connotation, so have librarians. It’s no long embarrassing to “know stuff”. (Well, it’s about time!) Truly, it isn’t that librarians know everything, so much as it is that we know where to start looking to find it. And whom to ask for help if we can’t find it ourselves.
Libraries will give you things for free. We don’t actually give stuff away, we just make it available for borrowing. Cancel your Netflix account, stop ordering boxes full of books from Amazon! The library will loan you almost anything you want to read or view free of charge. Who doesn’t like free?
Libraries are green and local. Can’t argue with that one, either. Is it ecologically sound for each of us to purchase every book Nicholas Sparks spits out? No, of course not. We buy a few copies at the library and take turns with anyone in town who is interested. What is on the library shelves is chosen locally just for us. No big-box retail executive in New York sending out our reading material. A local library selects what its users want, not what someone else wants us to want to read.
Libraries are open to the public. The author of the article writes that “some days, you really have to wonder about people.” Perhaps in some libraries, but not ours. Our library is where you see the best in people. Everyone here adores little Kate who comes in with her mother to ride our alligator (elevator). We appreciate the curmudgeonly attitudes of the daily newspaper readers, except when they snore. Our library is Humboldt’s living room but without a tv and with more personal interaction.
There seems to be a preposterous level of goodwill. No one doesn’t like libraries. Even the goofiest of YouTube videos, if it is about libraries, will engender warm fuzzy feelings. One Humboldt snowbird told me this story: She was in the Minneapolis airport waiting for the last leg of the trip bringing her back to Humboldt after an Arizona winter. Her cell phone rang. It was the Humboldt Public Library with a book on hold for her. We pretty well know her schedule and we start reserving her favorite authors when we know she is on her way home. Janet said “that’s a small town, for you.” Not really, that’s just libraries.
Be sure to check out the Lady Gaga-inspired YouTube video on our website, www.humboldtpubliclibrary.com. Click on the Bookmarks Newsletter. You will see librarians in a whole new light.