“Bigger is better” was the mantra during the decades following the appropriation of the first federal library money. Many still believe it, but now there are new reasons for doubt. Bigger libraries and library systems are not always stronger or better.

In the 1950s, we thought that small libraries were inherently weak. Many served jurisdictions so small that they were chronically underfunded. Even today, many small libraries can't even afford to hire the professional librarians needed to guarantee excellence.

The argument for bigness, for ensuring that small libraries joined bigger systems, was so inflexible that some states did it by force. Few can forget the war that raged in Florida as state and federal aid were used as a club to compel libraries once governed by communities into new county systems. When you look now, it is easy to say the result was worth the price. Those Florida systems contain some of the nation's great institutions. Who can say they would not be great as the libraries of cities and towns, however?

The excellent county systems of the middle and far West are robust, too, even when, as in Los Angeles, the county and city systems compete with each other for whatever glory it brings. Across the bay from San Francisco are the Alameda and Contra Costa County systems. Seattle's admirable public library system abuts the King County Library System, and on the border of Cleveland lies the Cuyahoga County Public Library. So one must concede that there is plenty of evidence to support that once dominant theory that making big ones out of small ones strengthens libraries.

However, reports from librarians who work on the front lines at some of the large urban libraries tell a slightly different story. They describe entrenched incompetence teaming up with rules and policies to stifle creativity. They tell of the bureaucratic maze one must navigate to get approval for innovations. Training programs to create new, young leaders are shut down with the first budget axe. The busiest hours of service fall to cost-cutting. Indeed, funding of big city libraries is as much in jeopardy as it is in those small towns. In many urban facilities, if the management bureaucracy doesn't demoralize new, young librarians, the deep-rooted union leadership and tight work rules do the job.

For five years, LJ's Best Small Library in America Award, with the generous support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has exhibited the hardiness of America's smaller libraries. The story of each winner has reeducated us about the unique values of being small. We often forget that most U.S. libraries serve communities of 10,000 or less. Unlike their giant urban cousins, little libraries have distinct advantages. Their compact jurisdictions and constituencies produce a fierce loyalty that often more than makes up for fewer dollars. In Haines, AK, local folks literally built the new library and used it to bring at-risk youth into the creative mainstream of that town. This year's winner, South Carolina's Union County Carnegie Library (“Carolina Dreaming,” LJ 2/1/09, p. 26–29), brought a new quality of life to its service area.

Small libraries must allow a truncated staff to do nearly everything, which leads to autonomy for creative thinkers and a very quick separation of effective workers from those who are not. It means unleashing innovation, taking risks, and tapping local civic pride to get support in kind and in dollars from sources other than taxes. In Moab, UT, rather than the dicta of library professionals, the vision of library service was defined by the citizens. The result: those citizens built what they consider a community living room.

It is wrong to generalize from five winners of one award, or to be too negative about the problems faced by large libraries. What we have learned, however, is that every advantage of the big systems and huge facilities has a price in rules, inflexibility, bureaucracy, and sluggishness. In small libraries, for every innovator, every citizen volunteer, and every risk taken there is a price in chronic low funding, difficulty signing on professional expertise, and the threat that the best people will be hired away by a nearby city.

It is apparent now, however, that the old cliché should be rewritten when it comes to libraries: the bigger they come, the harder they change.