The Power of One or Maybe a Few & I get sidetracked

Greetings!

This has been one of those weeks where first the air conditioning didn't work. It got fixed just in time to beat the arrival of the cold front that dropped temperatures down to where they belong this time of year -- which means hovering around overnight lows that might put one in mind of turning on the heat! Then, last night, as the library's Dewey Stitchers were leaving the building, the elevator decided not to run. As previously stated, it's been one of those weeks. Last weekend however, was the culmination of lot of frenzied activity to convert the room formerly-known-as "The Ellison Room" ( a clever name referencing the fact that our Ellison machine was made available there to the public) into "The Rosenberry Room" to honor the former head librarian and her husband. The Rosenberrys (Howard and Peg) were one of the driving forces behind this community actually having a library. In 1964 or perhaps the year before, there was legislation (either at the state or county level) that basically said if a community wanted a library, then it needed to be in place by a date certain or the process for getting recognized as a public library would involve a number of hoops to jump through. The Rosenberrys and their friends, who included organized groups that socialized around topics such as these : Opera, Charles Dickens, and Sherlock Holmes, decided that there should be a public library in the DeForest area and set about making it happen. And they did. They put the squeeze on local businesses, individuals, and governments and on May 21st, 1964 the library board of the DeForest Area Public Library met for the very first time. By December of that year they opened a library. For a while there was some turn over at the helm. In 1968, when the library board was looking for a library director, Howard Rosenberry volunteered his wife Peg. She agreed to do it. The fact that Howard volunteered his wife without consultation might be interpreted as typical of the times. But it wasn't. The Rosenberry daughters (there are five of them, plus an AFS student from Norway who became a daughter during her year's stay with the family) affirm that the reason their dad volunteered their mother was because she was too self-effacing, too shy, to have put her self forward or in any way appear to be assuming she could do such a job. Howard had every confidence she could and supported her going back to school to get her degree in library science. Peg was the library for the next 20 years and her resignation brought the Bookrat to DeForest. The library board and staff finally honored the contribution this family made to the community with a ceremony and room naming on Saturday, October 6th. Unfortunately, both of the honorees had passed away by that time. The daughters pointed out that actually, that was great. Their parents would have like the idea that after they were gone that there was this wonderful occasion to bring their daughters together and to remind the community that individuals can make a difference.

Now, wasn't that an extremely long wind up, to get us to the title of this posting? I think we all know individuals who have made a difference. I firmly believe that public librarians are positioned well in most communities (It may be easier in slightly smaller libraries.) to be agents of change and to improve the community's quality of life as well. That often involves the extremely strong will of the library director. But what difference can one person make in the crush of the digital age and the screaming for attention that each new technology demands of the responsive public library? I think it all comes down to values.


There is much debate about the future viability of public libraries : Will it be replaced by the Internet? Will the printed book disappear? But public opinion polls and surveys generally agree that the public likes the idea of a public library, even if they personally don't use it. Now why is that? Subliminal programming leaps to mind. But that would involve having the means and opportunity to get at the general public and actually mess with their minds which can certainly be done (cf. mass media) but which most libraries don't have the time or the means to do. Maybe public libraries are a little like going to church. You attend when you're a little kid because your parents make you, which is where you learn to value it. When you get to the age of adulthood -- whatever that might be in your own particular family-- you may fall away from going to church. Then, when you have children of your own, a remarkable thing happens. You start going to church so your kids will go. And the circle of acquiring the values of one's particular clan, comes full circle. We see this pattern happen in library land as well. Pre-schoolers and primary-aged kids are great users of libraries are brought to the library by their young parents or the elders of their family. As the child ages he/she has less and less to do with the library. While at university, public libraries don't exist for most students. They get a job, have that first child and suddenly they're back using the library. It seems to me that this behavior in both cases, church and public libraries, is because these institutions epitomize the values of large groups of society. Parents want their children to share their values so they take their children back to that place where they themselves received "instruction". Perhaps, that's why public libraries have such staying power in the face of the digital age-- return customers and a values-transfer mechanism. I've always thought that to expand or even maintain our customer base we had to get the youngest members of the community and their caregivers "hooked on books". Listening to language and stories, and looking at books is still the major language acquisition modality for babies. Libraries have touted the language acquisition piece as new early-brain-development research trickles its way down to story hours. Public libraries have pushed the socialization piece as well for toddlers. You know, the bit about preschool story hours helping children learn to sit still, take turns, and share. Public librarians have generally not dared to look at the values piece. But I think it's there and we better start paying attention to it if we want public libraries to continue to exist in whatever shape they morph into next. I'll quit these musings for now since I've run on so long. But I think the power of public libraries is that one little kid in story hour(and a few of his /her friends who are having a grand time playing, laughing, making noise, surrounded on all sides by books) who is laying the groundwork for public libraries to exist twenty years from now.
Let me hear from you! ( You know who you are. I'm looking right at you!)