Feedback: Letters to LJ, October 1, 2010
"Yes, we charge for DVDs and CDs with the result that we have one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the county" Oct 1, 2010Trumpeted "changes"
I find it curious that if a library does not adopt many of the "changes" trumpeted in recent issues of LJ and charges a minimal fee for services, that library is branded as being "outdated and a disservice to our users" (Harry Courtright, "The modern P.L.," Feedback, LJ 7/10). Additionally, these libraries are accused of not listening to users and not providing what they want and how they want it.
I take issue with the above and the examples used in Courtright's letter. For example, self-service in gas stations, banks, and grocery stores? No one asked me if I wanted these changes. As a matter of fact, in discussions with Home Depot employees, they have told me that the move to self-checkout was simply to cut labor costs and [left] only one cashier on duty...with the result that customers now stand in lines and many cashiers have been laid off. Gas stations? In Pennsylvania the retail gas association went to the legislature back in the day to have self-service approved...again to cut labor costs and shift the work onto the customer...and gas is more expensive in Pennsylvania than in New Jersey, which does not have self-service. If the author of the above letter was going to tout private sector examples for libraries, he should have done his homework.
No users in our library have requested any of the above "changes"! Yes, we do charge for DVDs and CDs with the result that we have one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the county. Our users are pleased with these collections and do not mind paying a minimal fee to maintain them.
I am sure that politicians would gladly bring on these "changes," with the concomitant reductions in staff and budgets that the adoption of private sector idiocies would entail. Lest we forget, the private sector drove this economy into the worst depression since 1929. Yet some librarians want to emulate these practices? I don't think so.
Breezy but serious
I was surprised to see Margaret-Heilbrun discourage libraries from buying Short Cuts: A Guide to Oaths, Ring Tones, Ransom Notes, Famous Last Words, and Other Forms of Minimalist Communication ("Short Takes: Language," LJ 8/10, p. 88). She states that the book is only "paragraph after paragraph of information," without having been "sifted, connected, contextualized, or edited." This seems an odd complaint, like bemoaning a dictionary not having an overarching story. The co-authors state in their preface that they have made a guide to the geography and cultural history of abbreviated discourse, and the book lives up to this promise.
Like the other books by the Humez brothers (A B C Et Cetera: The Life and Times of the Roman Alphabet, Zero to Lazy Eight: The Romance of Numbers, On the Dot: The Speck That Changed the World), this one is both funny and informative. Yes, it sometimes feels as though the authors want to include everything and the kitchen sink—and the instructions for putting the sink together and a history of plumbing—but that's part of the pleasure of their books. They are lighthearted but take their obligation to their subjects seriously. I plan to continue to order Humez titles for my library despite Heilbrun's review, and I expect that our undergraduates will continue to turn to them regularly when they need a breezy but well-researched and informative topic overview.
In case it matters, I should say that I know Nick Humez professionally: we both write for Verbatim: The Language Quarterly, Nick far more regularly than I. Because I enjoyed his articles in Verbatim, I began seeking out his books for my library and myself.
Transforming tradition
Barbara Hoffert's "Every Reader a Reviewer" (LJ 9/1/10, p. 22–25) addressed nicely the changing landscape of reviewing, which mirrors that of book publishing. Along with the proliferation of self-published books has come a large growth in self-published reviews. The web has certainly paved the way for everyone to be a reviewer, or, for that matter, an author.
Hoffert nicely encapsulates this by demonstrating that everyone is also an LJ feature article writer. Well, this might be an exaggeration, but I believe the article's strength was due to the input from those of us in the reviewing and library universes. In a sense, the article was like a spirited interactive blog....
I spend a lot of time trolling Amazon for reviews. As might be expected, many of them are terrible, nothing more than posturing. But many of the reviews are excellent, and some are among the best written, surpassing those of well-known authors who use reviews to promote their own soapboxes.
I hope LJ will continue to offer forums on how technologies are not only introducing new services but transforming traditional ones.
