A Dozen Solutions to All Library Problems
By Walt Crawford
American Libraries Columnist
Senior analyst, Research Libraries Group
Column for April 2004
In honor of April 1 and the library facilities issue, I’d like to share a special set of precepts to eliminate library problems and end the need for new library buildings, if you follow them to the letter.
1. Every good library is the same. That’s true for Barnes & Noble—and don’t all librarians want to make their facility just like Barnes & Noble? Consider how much you’ll save by treating your library just like all the other libraries.
2. Outsource: Profit = efficiency = effectiveness. You outsourced most cataloging years ago. You don’t build your own integrated systems, publish your own books, or manufacture your own shelving. Why do local collection development, reference work, or anything except circulation? Outsourcing takes care of union problems and overpaid employees; it’s as good for libraries as for any other bottom-line business.
3. Follow the Pareto Principle. Focus 80% of your library’s budget and attention on the 20% of your customers who represent 80% of your business. Satisfy your best customers (the word to use!) and you can’t go wrong. Those who get left behind probably don’t pay much in taxes anyway, and won’t help when you start your NPR-style pledge drives (AL, Feb., p. 37–39). Forget them.
4. Give ’em what they want. Period. Buy enough copies of the latest bestsellers to fill all demand. For academic libraries, get all the full-text journals you can possibly afford: Students love ’em. Why worry about materials that serve the next generation? You’ll be retired by then anyway. What did the next generation ever do for you?
5. If it hasn’t circulated in two years, dump it. Keep those shelves clear for the stuff your best customers want. If nobody’s used it in two years, chances are it’s worthless for today’s top customers.
6. Never offend your community. Who are you to purchase materials that offend community members? Once you move to an inoffensive collection policy, you won’t have to explain to trustees why they should care about intellectual freedom and minority needs.
7. Ignore your community. Do you have a growing Spanish collection to serve your growing Hispanic population? How about ESL and adult literacy programs to help struggling community members? Are you investigating and serving changing community needs? No?
Then why bother? You’re the professional here. That’s why they pay you the big bucks.
8. Kids these days do everything on computers and they’ll never change. Out go the bookshelves. In go the WiFi networks and e-book systems.
Today’s young mutants don’t care about books, story hours, or anything that isn’t on a cell phone/PDA or notebook computer. They never will. Aren’t you just the same now as you were 20 years ago? You can see the wave of the future: Surf it or drown.
9. Technology solves all problems. If technology creates a problem, you just need more technology to solve the problem. You need to spend more time paying attention to new technological solutions—those are the only ones that matter.
10. Keep shifting to shiny new toys. How many neat new technologies and devices have you investigated this year? If you’re not hooking up something new every week or two, you’re falling behind. You’re not some sort of Luddite, are you? It’s new, it’s neat, it’s shiny: You must work it into your library plans.
11. You have your MLS. You can stop learning. Do you really want to spend time reading boring professional literature? If something matters, someone will alert you to it—and, after all, it’s only the shiny new toys that matter. Institutes and conference programs are great excuses for drinking and dining, but the exhibits should teach you everything you really need to know.
12. Fight stereotypes at every turn. You could raise the status of librarians by providing professional, tailored services to those who need them most—but isn’t it more fun to complain about media portrayals of hair in buns, sensible shoes, and shushing? As lawyers have demonstrated, the path to success is constant whining about stereotypes.
13. Embrace inevitability. The print serial is dead and the print book is dying. Nobody wants to go to a library. Book reading is a lost art in any case, and Google gives you all the research anyone really needs. That’s the way it is. It’s inevitable. Live with it.
There they are: A baker’s dozen of ideas (some useful in small doses) that will end all your problems when taken to extremes. Enjoy!
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