A Vending Library Is No Library

“A new Washington County Library location is scheduled to open in Hugo [MN] in February with no books and no librarians,” the Pioneer Press reported. This plan for a library kiosk with an adjoined book locker is not as comprehensive as the Library-a-Go-Go service model already in operation in Contra Costa County, CA, where stand-alone machines house and circulate 400 books. Yet, both vending solutions share a reductionist and, ultimately, self-defeating philosophy of library service—one devoid of human contact and only as dynamic as the nearest RedBox.

The cities of Winona, MN, and Salem, OR, while suffering severe revenue shortfalls, have already demonstrated a propensity to act radically under pressure by attacking library service and the profession: firing library directors, eliminating their positions, and granting control to other city agencies. Just think what such municipalities might do when they become aware of vending options.

Imagine a small city library with an outstanding reputation for delivering exceptional service. The library is a community treasure and an anchor of downtown. Library expansion has been on the table for years, but only recently (and reluctantly) has a $9 million addition been approved.

Sometime later, a city council member learns about an urban system's plan to place library vending machines in transit stations to “increase access to library services.” The city council member, captivated by the idea, envisions distributed library service via vending machines. Ideally, five library vending machines will be a one-time nominal investment, and the annual operating expense pales in comparison to the $1 million put forth to sustain the current library. The $9 million planned for expansion, he dreams, can be better used to build a hockey arena and city hall. Brilliant!

This scenario, if outrageous to library lovers, is not only possible but plausible. If library service can be minimally defined as material transactions, then administrators will question why we should build full-service libraries and pay professional staffs.

Perhaps this argument boils down to how library administrators view their operations in comparison with other departments: Is it an essential service or a recreational amenity?

If library service is a recreational amenity like the tennis court or dog park, then the comprehensive effect of the service on the broader culture is minimal. If, on the other hand, library service is essential to the educational, cultural, economic, and civic well-being of the community, equal with public safety and public works, then a more elaborate argument and dynamic model is called for, one that cannot be communicated via any vending machine.

When the Glen Carbon Centennial Library, IL, was named the Best Small Library in America (LJ 2/1/10, p. 20–23), it was not because of extensive self-service but because it personalized library service, which develops deeper human relationships.

What do small-town librarians understand that our urban colleagues seem to have dismissed? As Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, insightfully observed in his recent interview with Jessamyn West (LJ 2/1/10, p. 24–25), “If I were a librarian right now, I would attempt to conceive of the library from an experiential point of view.... What is the experience that is missing...from the world...from the private home? What is the experience...that we need in order to be human?”

Small-town librarians know how to create a service experience that enriches the human spirit. On the corporate side, Starbucks built a global industry not by locating coffee vending machines in transportation hubs but by offering a human-centric experience that seeks, according to the company's mission, “to inspire and nurture the human spirit, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.”

Libraries that offer the same experience are guaranteed future relevance even as technology transforms our occupation and the materials we handle. That is, unless the prospect of huge cost savings via the vending library becomes too tempting for budgeters to pass up. The survival of every “full-service” library and the profession itself has now been put at risk!

Public libraries and librarians have withstood many threats to their existence. In the near future, a digital device (iPad, Kindle?) may well displace the paper book as the preferred medium for the “written” word. Yet, libraries that embrace an exceptional human-centric service model will thrive when books are gone. Their relationships and substantive cultural impact will earn them “essential service” status. If we allow library service to be trivialized to the point where it can be performed out of a vending machine, perhaps it won't be Apple that finally kills the library, it will be librarians.