The bad ways are are in the teeth-grinding, sweat-inducing budget horrors going on around the country ("Oh, yeah, we'll close ya down every Monday"; "Money for the library? Nah, better we give it as a loan to a for-profit professional sports team to keep 'em in town"; "We don't need so many stinkin' branches"). They are in the stupidity of a local Fox affiliate "reporting" that no ones uses the library and it costs money.
The good ways - in advocacy organizations like Geek the Library, I Love Libraries, Save Libraries. And in the stream of amazing and very funny videos that have absolutely gone viral on libraries (I don't think I have to link you to the Old Spice guy or the New Spice guy which have been everywhere in the blogosphere in the last week) like Librarians Do Gaga and more. Humor is always good!
Good and bad news puts libraries front and center in the public's perception. And it forces people to think about whether a shared, public, community resource (whether school, public or academic library) is worth keeping in times of real struggle.
I hope we are the next pop-culture phenom. Libraries are there for all. And we need to keep it that way!
Image: 'picture' http://www.flickr.com/photos/58428285@N00/3122529077
Our local Fox network was the only one that covered the protest in LA against the Monday closures of all of our city libraries. All the other channels spent most of their time on Lindsey Lohan going to jail.
ReplyDeleteLet's make Lindsay our spokeswoman...lol!!
ReplyDelete