National Library Week - April 12-18, 2009

Coming up next week is National Library Week.  First sponsored in 1958, it came about as a result of research showing that people were spending more and more on televisions and radios, and less and less on books.  The theme for this year is “Worlds connect @ your library”.  Notice the use of the “@” sign instead of spelling out the word?  Hmmm . . .

I digress.  National Library Week is all about promoting “the values of libraries and librarians”. A good cause, no doubt.  I can remember doing research in our library, and getting all kinds of help from Mrs. Gaines, our school librarian.  I remember going to the Cedar Rapids public library and getting help from the staff when I needed to search for some old newspaper articles on microfilm.  I remember getting “shushed” by the Cornell College librarian when my friend and I got just a little too animated over a project we were working on.  Libraries and librarians provide a much-needed service to communities across the country, and the world.

With the ever-increasing usage of, and content on, the world wide web, you’d think that libraries don’t get used much any more.  You’d be wrong.  Based on the latest available data, libraries circulate more items in a day (5.4 million) than FedEx does (5.2 million).  With more and more content getting digitized every day, libraries are still proving that they can “deliver the goods”.  You can’t get a children’s reading program online.  It just is not the same thing as sitting down in front of the author and having them read to your child.

Remember, librarians can find things you can’t.  There is no librarian on the Internet, waiting for you to walk up to the desk and ask for help.  I love this quote from Neil Gaiman:  “Most people don’t realize how important librarians are. I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn’t value its librarians doesn’t value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?”

Thank a librarian next week!  And if you’re a librarian, hold your head up proudly, and remember how to “shush” people!