The Fight Goes On.

Hmm, I was torn between War, Battle and Fight, but I went with Fight because I'm being optimistic and hoping this isn't a war. Because this is about libraries and what the business world is doing to kill them, dead.

I suspect that everyone but librarians wants libraries to become tools of corporations, to be Kindle support centers, or wireless hubs for Netflix streams, or whatever else is out there. But they don't want us to be libraries. Because libraries are run by librarians.

And that's the problem: librarians.

A recent post by Seth Godin attempts to define a librarian as something limited by format: print books are bad, digital bits are good. So librarians should become digital wizards, or something. I think the current hip term is "data sherpa who directs and engages conversations," or some other bullshit. And a librarian is bad if she's not continuously evolving and growing toes.

But a good librarian would never exclude a data format from the search results. You ask me for information on turtles and you're getting everything I can find, and that includes printed books. But chances are, you're going to wave your Kindle in my face and say, "I want it here." And regardless of my reply, my eyes will tell you to go fuck yourself.

Sixty percent of the world's people would kill to have a library filled with books. Some countries won't even let you into a library without proper identification. But Americans, on our rapid decent from being a world power toward become the world's bag boy, have lost sight of what has lasting value and moved on to what has recurring monthly fees. In response to Seth's Blog, Bobbi Newman says, "One of the many roles of the public library is to ensure that all people have access to that information."

And that is the fundamental difference with every current view of the library and the real purpose of the library: Libraries are for everyone.

Read a dozen news stories from the past year and there has almost always been some derogatory comment about the homeless sleeping in the library, or people looking at porn or Facebookers, or DVD renters or old people doing the crossword puzzles in the paper or whatever. As if these people don't deserve access to what they want, even if what they want is crap. And that's my job to decide. Not Amazon's job or Netflix's or Godin's. I'm the fucking librarian, motherfucker. I am not any corporation's bitch. And if I want books in the library, we're having books. And DVDs. And econtent. And graphic novels. And pie.

I see the war on the horizon. I see the battle here at our door. And the fight has been going on for years, as this is now 14 AG (Anno Google), and librarians have had to convince others of our relevance since the birth.

I understand that Seth is a book writer, and that he needs to make his ideas sound important. But I don't want to work in his library filled with computer terminals. I see that world each and every day and I don't like the crowd it attracts.

So I won't say Seth is totally wrong, but I think he sees libraries as some untapped reservoir of consumer dollars and that libraries should direct that energy into buying or selling more products. At least that's what I think when I hear phrases like, "create value."

I don't need anyone telling me what kind of librarian I should be. I'm the kind I always was, the kind I was trained to be: you ask for crap and I help you to find or do it. And I don't see that description changing, ever.