[Web4lib] Innovation: NYT article on Dewey-less Arizona public library

[Andrew Mutch]

"I feel like there's a strong tone of arrogance and self-righteousness from the library community that is unwarranted in the face of a public that seems to be barely paying attention."

But it's not the public that is writing these articles. These are written by journalists who should make some effort to do more than rehash press release talking points and moldy stereotypes. If I was writing an article like this and didn't realize that libraries had replaced card catalogs or offered access to online reference materials, wouldn't you make the effort to see if this was the start of a trend or something that might have been tried out a place or two?  Might you trek down to your local library to see how it measured up to the "innovation" taking place in Arizona? If an automobile writer wrote about a new vehicle using hybrid engines and called it innovation or a business writer talked about the innovation of online stock trading, I doubt you would see them writing many more articles on either topic. So why do we settle for such cluelessness about our profession? 

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI


---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 12:47:14 -0400
>From: "Ross Singer" <ross.singer at library.gatech.edu>  
>Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Innovation: NYT article on Dewey-less Arizona public library  
>To: web4lib at webjunction.org
>
>What's killing me about the library world's reaction to both this and
>the earlier 'hipster' article is the shock and outrage that anyone
>could still have such an antiquated view of libraries.
>
>Rather than analyze /why/ such a mindset exists, the dialog has
>centered around pointing out how ignorant these authors must be and
>how long it must have been since they've darkened the doorway of their
>local public library.  Maybe it's just a reflection on the quality of
>the New York metro area's libraries, but maybe a lot of what appears
>in these articles could come as a news to a large portion of its
>readers (assuming the majority of those that have read these articles
>are outside of the subscriptions of library-focused mailing lists).
>
>I feel like there's a strong tone of arrogance and self-righteousness
>from the library community that is unwarranted in the face of a public
>that seems to be barely paying attention.
>
>-Ross.
>
>On 7/15/07, B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> There was a discussion of innovation on this list recently...
>>
>> I think the Dewey-less public library branch in Gilbert Arizona might have been mentioned during the innovation discussion, but I wanted to point out an article from yesterday's (July 14) NY Times. It's listed as the fourth most e-mailed article:
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/14/us/14dewey.html
>>
>> Librarians in general seem to come off as fuddy-duddies resistant to change and innovation, e.g., "On Web sites where librarians frequently post, the abandonment of Dewey has not been welcome. One blogger titled her entry 'Heresy!' Another called the Perry Branch's approach 'idiotic.'"
>>
>> Bernie Sloan
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
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