Feedback
By Staff -- Library Journal, 6/15/2006
Don’t blame the boomers
I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or be angry at John Berry’s “Start a Corps, Not a Corpse” (Blatant Berry, LJ 5/1/06, p. 10). Too many blanket statements and errors....
The only problem for me and many other “boomers” is that we aren’t yet at retirement age. Even the first boomers, born in 1946, are only turning 60 this year....most of us at the 50 and below mark don’t feel that way.... Blaming boomers for the sad state of affairs in libraries that “need assistance” isn’t fair. Most are public libraries, and funding problems have more to do with it than who is running them....
I still have a few new original ideas, and I’m not afraid of technology. I can create a decent web page, administer our library system, and use application software on a daily basis.... We have librarians with MLS degrees less than five years old. I listen to them and encourage them to come up with new ideas. However, I’m not going to...do away with all “traditional” library activities. When I start to say either “That’s the way we’ve always done it” or “We’ve never done it that way,” I’ll know it’s time to leave.
To those up-and-coming librarians who are cranky about not getting our jobs, I have to say that I’m sorry you were misled about jobs and salaries, but that’s not my fault nor the fault of most of us actually working in libraries. We did not promise the American Library Association or the library schools that we would retire early or even “on time”....
Librarianship is not an entitlement program; it’s a career that most of us love and want to keep toiling at as long as our bodies and minds and attitudes hold out.... I doubt that many retired folks will volunteer for that library corps, but perhaps they could do cataloging if they do.... There aren’t many newer grads who learned how in library school.
—Cynthia L. Peterson, Dir. of Lib. Svcs., Jarrett Lib., East Texas Baptist Univ., Marshall
Soon retiring
You must have received a million emails by now about John Berry’s wonderful “Start a Corps, Not a Corpse” (Blatant Berry, LJ 5/1/06, p. 10). I truly relate to it, but I have never told anyone why. The last year of graduate school I did a practicum at a university library, mentored by a librarian who was 95 years old and “soon retiring.” The library director encouraged me to stay on after my internship, post graduation, and promised me that I would be “interviewed”.... The librarian I would replace decided not to retire....
Now at 35, I am director of one of those “small libraries” you describe. We can afford an MLIS, but we are not required by state law to hire one. The outgoing director worked at my library for over 18 years. She graduated in 1974, not with an MLS, as she told me, but something “like it.” I started kindergarten in 1974. Within one month of working at my library...she called me stupid.... My former director (past president of a state library association) constantly yelled at me in front of support staff, saying things like, “Didn’t they teach her anything in library school!” and “She doesn’t even know how to create a proper shelf-list card!”
I am now a “young director” of this very same library. I have redesigned the library’s webpage (actually designed one—we didn’t have one before), turned us into a wireless hot spot (our town has no Starbucks), networked our computers and printers, improved our public relations, increased our donations by 100 percent, increased our yearly budget, created wildly popular info literacy and computer training courses, and increased our circulation by over 30 percent; 50 percent for children’s and YA material....
My outgoing, retiring library director did not support me and actively discouraged me.... Thank God the trustees did not listen to that former director. Unfortunately, I have seen this scenario play out over and over again. Berry’s is the first honest look at this problem....
—Audrey Factor, Special Libn., Upstate New York
The public needs VHS
Norman Oder’s “DVD Predicament” (LJ 11/15/05, p. 38–40) does not remind library trustees, who need reminding, that public access is the library goal. Many patrons have limited access to DVD players and still rely on video material in the VHS format. This is particularly true in economically disadvantaged areas. As Oder points out, many valuable video materials are not yet available on DVD. Maybe they won’t be for a long time.
Trustees should remind management not to discard VHS materials, nor to refuse useful VHS donations. By limiting their acquisition of VHS materials, libraries display an elitist attitude toward the public whom they should serve. Complaints by library management about VHS materials are self-serving and should be regarded as contrary to the primary mission of the library. Trustees need to put the public’s needs first.... The public who need access most still need VHS.
—Douglas Bartlett, CPA, Riverside, CA
