My mother, Judy, forwarded me an e-mail message from a friend named Peggy Kessenger, a member of the same generation. The letter was part of an ongoing conversation, but I found it interesting enough on its own that I wrote to Mrs. Kessenger for permission to repost it here. She was kind enough to grant that permission, and added the following two paragraphs as an introduction. The locations given are in southwest Missouri; links were added by me.
We like to talk about how e-books may be a boon to the older generations for such factors as ease of page-turning and increasing font size. However, I feel that the voice of that generation may not be heard as much as it should in these discussions, since they may not have as much time or inclination to participate in on-line forums. It is also good to remember that they may not have as full an understanding of e-books as we do. This is a great example of a viewpoint we’re missing.
—Chris Meadows
A couple of months ago, Jess and I saw a cartoon where a little boy was asking his father, "Daddy. What’s a library?" For some reason, that cartoon stuck in our minds and the more we thought about it the more we realized how true that could become. Then when the Carthage library cut back on its hours making it horribly difficult for me, a working person, to use the library, the more we thought that cartoon just might become true sooner than we thought.
I’m real frustrated with the Carthage library especially after being used to the Barry/Lawrence library system. I think there could be other ways to reduce costs besides cutting the hours and even if they have to cut hours, why do they not try to have hours that working people could also use! If I were retired or independently wealthy and didn’t have to work I could go to the library any time but unfortunately that’s not the case.
Judy:
I didn’t mean that libraries will be shutting down next week any more than the US Post office will be shutting down. But as more and more people are getting computers and learning to use the Internet, fewer and fewer people will even need to go to a library to use a computer. A couple of weeks ago a friend showed us what looked like a covered legal pad notebook. Her husband had gotten it for her for Christmas from Amazon. I don’t remember the exact name of it but I have it written down somewhere. Anyway, you could order a book for one dollar from Amazon and they would download it for you onto this notebook. She had put the Bible on it. I also don’t remember how many books it would hold but seems like it was somewhere in the 300 or 600 range. I know it was more books than I will probably ever have time to read in the rest of my life.
I was fortunate to grow up with the Barry/Lawrence library system as you currently have available for your use. But Jasper County libraries are a whole different animal. First of all, here in Carthage, only those people to live inside the city limits have free access to the Carthage Library and we have to pay $40.00 a year on our taxes for that ‘free’ library access whether we use it or not. For those folks living outside the city limits, they have to pay a yearly fee of $10.00 to have access to use the library. Now, they can still go in and read a newspaper or a magazine but they can’t check anything out or use a computer without paying the fee. If I would like a particular book and Carthage doesn’t have the book but the Joplin library does, I have to pay a fee plus shipping charges to have the book sent to Carthage from any other library. It would be cheaper to buy one of those notebook things and have Amazon download the book for $1 plus I would now own the book and wouldn’t have to return it in two weeks. And if I could get current books downloaded for only $1, bookstores may soon be on the extinction list also.
Carthage library says the economy is effecting their services. They are now no longer open on Mondays at all. Tuesdays are their regular hours of 9 am to 8 pm but Wed, Thurs, and Friday they close at 6p.m. Saturday they are only open from 9 am to 1 p.m. Since we usually don’t get out of the office on weekdays until at least 6 pm, Tuesdays are the only evening I have to use the library. I might be able to go on Thursdays but usually my Thursdays are so crammed full of everything else I don’t even think about going to the library. On Saturday, again we don’t get off work until at least 1:00 or later. I now haven’t been to the Carthage library since last October when they changed their hours. With the use of the Internet and ebooks, I don’t really even need to go to a library.
I don’t know about elementary schools because when I was in elementary school, I went to a two room country school and we had the book mobile come out once a month to bring books. I don’t ever remember even going to the high school library except for study hall. In college, I mostly went to the library for a quiet place to study when I was living in the dorm. I do remember using the college library to look up references for term papers but never to check out a reading book just for pleasure. I suppose with student access to the Internet, they don’t even have to use the library to write papers.
Anyway, I can see libraries being in danger in another 30 to 50 years whereas some of the things on the list are in danger just in the next 10 or so years. We have a friend who owns a video rental store and she is already starting to sweat bullets about having to close her store because downloading movies off the Internet will soon be taking over. She is about my age and she is just hoping the store will last until she is old enough to retire. We have another friend who commented that his postman is also hoping the post office will stay in business long enough for him to reach retirement. And we, just last month, cancelled our dial-up access to the Internet, so there is another customer they lost.
I don’t think your job will be in jeopardy anytime soon but your grandchildren might have a tough time finding a job if they major in library science.
pjk
This is one of the most horrifying posts I’ve ever read. The antics of a few buffoonish tycoons are nothing compared to this. It brings to the fore the need for Teleread’s original premise.
Sadly,
Jack Tingle
…the cold hearted fact is that technology drives change…change demands adaptation — driving a horse and buggy might be quaint but hardly practical on a superhighway…similarly, libraries are going to have to check out some books on “lateral thinking” and come up with alternate services they could provide to communities so that financial support would be more readily forthcoming…
rrtzmd Johnson is right!
Libraries have no choice but to reconfigure themselves to fit the 21st century, just as publishers must. Changing hours to save short-term money is easy, but ultimately pointless. Changing infrastructure, physical location, loan and fee agreements, online access, personnel duties and responsibilities, and response to new media… these changes will result in a significantly different, but healthily progressive, library system.
It’s time for libraries to stop lamenting the dying of the ivy on their walls, and start moving forward. They can still exist and fulfill a viable public function, as long as they don’t continue to demand adherence to the 20th century status quo.
This really isn’t an issue of pbooks or ebooks. This is a more fundamental problem – what services do citizens want and how much are they willing to pay for them.
Everybody wants the proverbial free lunch.
As we continue to inch closer to the inevitable fiscal apocalypse what services/taxes will citizens decide to support?
But that’s likely a topic for a different blog 🙂
@HeavyG
I think you’re right on the money. For some in the world of politics cutting taxes is the solution to every problem, but these are the things that result. It’s more of this business school short term thinking, “What does our bottom line look like this quarter/fiscal year?”. Rather than invest in our communities we keep cutting taxes.
[/rant]
I am a K-12 school librarian in a small southwest Missouri community. In the twelve years I’ve been there there has been a great deal of change. Reader’s Guide was replaced by online tools such as EbscoHost and more recently GaleNet. My reference collection is gathering dust. I won’t spend a thousand dollars on a new encyclopedia when my students have access to virtual reference materials.
However, E-books have not replaced fiction and nonfiction books for recreational reading and reading practice. I don’t believe that they will do so in the foreseeable future, but of course change could snowball. We’ll just have to wait and see.
“The old order changeth – yielding place to new – and God fulfills Himself in many ways . . .”
Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘Morte d’Arthur’