PLA Blog

I attended another preconference session on Wednesday morning, Bridging the Divide: Libraries Transform Communities.

Before we started, a moderator said ominously, “Please fill in empty chairs so each table has eight people. You are going to do some work this morning. You can’t really understand the concept of civil engagement unless you actually do it.” And then: “Let me introduce our panelists, who should be called ‘civic entrepreneurs’ more so than ‘librarians.’”

According to the panelists, our democracy is in danger because people are becoming alienated and withdrawn. Instead of actively participating in democracy, citizens are turning into spectators and passive consumers. Robert D. Putnam’s book Bowling Alone : The Collapse and Revival of American Community was cited as evidence of this problem.

Public libraries can save democracy, the panelists argued, by bringing people back together. Libraries can “bridge the divide” by providing public places where people can access and discuss a diversity of ideas. Librarians should not only be “at the table,” so to speak, we should “set the table.”

I agree that public libraries should promote and foster civic engagement, especially by using literature and information to enable individuals to empower themselves. If people are being alienated by consumerism, maybe librarians should stop overemphasizing “customer” service, I argued smugly in my group.

But when it was announced that after the session break our groups would facilitate a mock debate/forum about immigration, I bailed out. I gathered up my coat and bags and sneaked out. Luckily, I found refuge in Nancy Pearl’s mid-morning presentation, Book Buzz.

Nancy Pearl wondered if librarians should coin a new word to describe “the fear of being stuck somewhere without having something to read,” and then she told an amusing story about an author whose audience of one person actually collapsed and died during a disastrous book reading. Then a panel of publisher representatives talked about some of their best and most exciting upcoming books.

I was disappointed that Nancy Pearl didn’t talk more about her own favorite new releases, but I must thank her for the session. Thanks, Ms. Pearl, you literally saved me, at least this morning, with books!

Postscripts:

• Two interesting sites mentioned during Nancy Pearl’s session, bookclubgirl.com and earlyword.com.
• When I was greedily scarfing up free advanced reader copies of books at the exhibits, a New York librarian stopped me and exclaimed, “Hey! You abandoned my group this morning!”
• There actually is a session this coming Friday called Patron or Customer? From the description: “In short, the library is more than a business and patrons are more than mere customers.” Awesome!