Background for "Gutting America’s Local Libraries" Walt Crawford, 8 September 1999 This section was moved out of the main article because it was even more self-indulgent than I really care to be, and because most of it's a bit peripheral to the critique--although the first two paragraphs of "Why This is Here" are important. Note, however, that (except for modifying the hyperlink just below to go back to the article itself), not a word below the line that follows has been changed, tempting though that was...(which means that the first two sentences in the second paragraph now make no sense at all). I didn’t want to write this in the first place; the first section will explain why I finally did. If you don’t care why, then you can go directly to my naysaying here—although I had the most fun with the self-indulgent first section, including my favorite new sentence that I’ll never use in a formal article. I don’t offer a full set of internal anchors because later sections make no sense if you skip beyond "A few facts and numbers." I don’t offer pointers back to Steve Coffman’s articles or Mike Dahn’s commentaries; if you don’t already know where they are, what on earth are you doing here? Why This is Here I use public libraries. I like public libraries. My wife and I visit public libraries on vacation (sometimes), and I visit them when I’m speaking (frequently). My wife was a public librarian for a decade or so. I believe in local libraries, sensitive to their communities, part of their communities, helping to build and restore those communities. I believe that America’s public libraries represent one of the great strengths of our nation, and that most public libraries offer good service at remarkably low cost. Of course I believe America’s libraries can be improved, although I believe that the ways to improve them would be different for each local library. I react negatively when I encounter proposals or articles that would (in my opinion) undermine America’s public libraries in the service of some supposed greater good. I react even more negatively when such proposals come from within the library profession. I’m also inherently suspicious of Single Solutions—I don’t think life or libraries work that way. I’m more than suspicious of Big Ideas that require massive resource shifts before any gain can be realized. I think that the proponents of such ideas have an obligation to do research and arithmetic. They need to demonstrate that something’s fundamentally wrong with current allocations, they need to offer a plausible accounting of the proposed changes (what they would cost and what they would save), and they need to come up with convincing arguments that the new schema would actually be better than the existing system. I had no intention of writing this commentary. I read Steve Coffman’s 1998 American Libraries article, the one in which he trashed public library service and suggested that bookstore clerks could (should?) replace public librarians. I thought it was awful (and demeaning to some of the best librarians I know), wrote it off as a deliberate provocation, and let it drop. When I read this year’s Coffman piece in American Libraries, I was bemused at the concepts that everyone loves commercial call-center service, that banks have actually "improved the quality of service" (for all customers?) by making it nearly impossible to use human tellers, and, once again, that private industry always knows better than public libraries. I said, "Sounds like that provocateur from last year" (well, I used a slightly less polite term), checked the name, found out that it was the same person, and ignored it. I don’t read Searcher, so I didn’t encounter ELL immediately. But a reference was made to it on one of the few listservs I frequent, so I checked it out in the Web version. After one quick read-through, I wrote it off as a more extreme case of Coffman’s "private enterprise always does it better" stance and paid it no more mind. But the damn thing just wouldn’t go away. I’m one of the current LITA Top Technology Trends "trendspotters" (oddly enough), and a message to that group suggested that we take a look at the Coffman article. Another "trendspotter," whose work I have sometimes respected, sent a favorable commentary about the piece that made me think I’d misread it. This time I printed it (so I could really read it), read it again—and still thought it was nonsense. I assumed it would drift away like so many other dumb ideas. I assumed wrong. Next thing I know, there’s a special hour-long session of the LITA "trendspotters" at ALA Annual, and Coffman’s been invited to sit in. And, to the surprise of some of us, the session had been publicized at other LITA programs: it was "the place to be" from 4:30 to 5:30 on Sunday afternoon. My summary of that hour comes down to one word: awful. I know all but one or two of the real "trendspotters" (I assume I’m a troglodyte ringer, there for amusement value), I like all the ones I know, and I respect all of them—whether I know them or not. Most of them were there. I don’t believe Coffman convinced any "trendspotters" (the one who’d been on his side wasn’t there), but I also never got the sense that he heard what any of us were saying—or much cared. But, what the heck, now it’s over, right? A colleague and friend who knows Coffman assured me that he’s just a provocateur: I shouldn’t take it too seriously. Life goes on. I submit articles to American Libraries on various aspects of libraries, media and librarianship. Most of them are accepted; they should appear over the months to come (one is in the September 1999 issue). I keep tossing various ideas and opinions out in Crawford’s Corner in Library Hi Tech News, and do the occasional column for Online and Database—oops, now it’s EContent. I prepare five speeches for five different library groups for this fall. And from 7 to 4 on weekdays, I manage the introduction of a new version of Eureka, RLG’s Web-based end-user search system, and continue to work on further improvements to the system and the resources it searches, while my wife (now also at RLG) works on ways to reduce the costs and improve the effectiveness of ILL. (RLG’s ILL Manager, coming soon: look for it.) Both of us are working on real-world incremental improvements to library operations; it’s exciting stuff, and RLG does it well. And then…along come two linked occasions, publicized on PACS-L and in various other ways. INCOLSA and other regional networks sponsor a teleconference on ELL and Internet Libraries ’99 sets aside a full-day track on the topic. This isn’t just provocation, it’s either a continuing process of self-aggrandizement for Steve Coffman as Deep Thinker, a concerted attempt to increase Searcher’s readership, or a serious attempt to move forward with ELL. I go back to the Searcher Web site, read Coffman’s follow-up article, and read the lengthy Mike Dahn commentary. I grumble to my wife about this nonsense, noting that I wish the sensible people in the community would speak up. She eventually suggests that I should speak up. "Arrgh," I respond. (Now there’s a sentence that wouldn’t make it into a typical article.) I’ve got better things to do. It’s not my battle. It gives ELL more dignity and credibility than it deserves. I don’t like being controversial (really, I don’t; these things just happen). It will sound like sour grapes coming from an RLG employee, since (among other things) ELL would make OCLC a true monopoly. I don’t have the gravitas to make a difference: I’m not Clifford Lynch or Sue Martin or Michael Gorman or David Tyckoson or Bill Miller or Vartan Gregorian or Liz Bishoff or Ann Symons or … well, you can make your own list. I’m just an aging library systems designer (or "information architect" as my business card now says) who writes a lot, speaks a little, and tries to be useful. (These are things I either said to my wife or was using as reasons not to do this critique. There were others.) She’s heard it all before. She remembers my more-innocent younger days, when I was getting tired of explaining the MARC formats to people on the phone and wished someone would write a book about them. When I couldn’t convince anybody else to do it, I did it myself…reluctantly, but what the heck, one book wouldn’t kill me. That was 13 books ago. So, after I went through the list she just commented, "Shouldn’t a voice of reason be heard on this proposal?" Grumble. Rationalize. Procrastinate. One wonderful thing about putting off a nasty project when you have lots of less-nasty projects on your calendar: you can get a lot of other things done in the process. Soon enough, I had drafts for all my fall speeches. Soon enough, I was caught up on writing articles and reading media books (which I’d been reading hoping that I could cancel my own project as redundant: no such luck). So, despite my misgivings, feelings that someone else (preferably several big-name public librarians and technology leaders) should be putting a stake through the heart of ELL, and general preference for doing almost anything else, here I am and here it is. Written and posted August 30, 1999. Separated out into this separate document September 8, 1999 Return