Death of a Lifestyle

On a recent visit to Atlanta I had the opportunity to visit the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for a few hours while waiting to board a plane back to Detroit. The gardens had recently held a scarecrow contest with clever entries adorning most of the gardens. One display caught my eye as it made a very interesting statement which portrayed the death of the written book, film and music industries, magazines and newspapers, moderate politics, the post office and privacy. Certainly not a message I expected to see as part of a scarecrow display at a Botanical Garden. I took a few photos of this display and was on my way, it was not until I was at work today that I thought again about the statement this display made as many of these issues are issues communities across the nation are facing.

The images of books in the coffin popped into my head on several occasions today. I am a librarian at the public library in the community where I reside and have seen the publishing industry suffer huge losses due to not only the economy, but to many technological advances over the last decade. Print materials are being replaced with electronic materials, there are downloadable audio books and subscription databases, information available via social software implementation, add general internet searches and there is certainly serious competition for this industry.

Look at what has happened in our own backyard. Despite numerous attempts by various community groups over the last several years, the Macomb County Library and Reference and Research Center, a victim of budget cuts in these turbulent economic times, has permanently closed its doors on Friday, September 30, 2011, R.I.P.

What is to become to the largest collection of reference materials in Macomb County, now that these books have no home?

The solution was to offer member libraries in the Suburban Library Cooperative these materials. Each member library has been provided with a 385-page list of available reference materials looking to be adopted. Each member library was given an opportunity to select items to enhance their current collections, with the books to be shared equitably between interested libraries.

Part of my job as a librarian is to select materials suitable for inclusion in our community library collection. I spent several hours looking at this list hoping to select materials to enhance the collection of my home town library.

As I spent time looking over the list of available materials, what became apparent almost immediately was the publication date of these materials, with 385 pages totaling an estimated 6,000 books less than 1% of the materials had a publication date of 2010 or 2011. Sadly, I recommended my library offer to take less than 100 titles from this list. I envisioned the book coffin overflowing with out of date materials, begging the question is the traditional nonfiction collection at the local public library a dying breed?

What types of nonfiction materials in the public library does your family utilize? How are your information needs best met? Do you prefer traditional printed materials, downloadable audio books, social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Four Square, Skype, or do you prefer an information exchange by simply texting and awaiting a response? What are your user expectations for a library collection or library services today?

Perhaps the scarecrow display at the botanical garden was more than an artistic statement …