Ripped from the Metro… Libraries Are Invisible
Posted February 7, 2011 by fox32
Had not thought of this point recently raised by Marilyn Johnson (author of This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All) but worth noting, and potentially tough to reverse.
Libraries are invisible to people in power. Politicians [and corporate bodies generally i would say -ed.] have their own research staffs and IT support and newspaper subscriptions; they dont see how dependent the rest of us are on that shared information.
–Marilyn Johnson
Endnote: I always come back to a quote from my tutor Alan Smith, worth repeating;
“Show me a town that denies funding to a library, and I’ll show you a librarian who stays in the office. Show me a town that funds its library, and I’ll show you a librarian who takes donuts down to the fire department. Who goes down to the city hall and goes into offices asking if they need anything. You have to be proactive. It might come as a shock to some of you, but a large part of the success of that library is your personality and the way you treat people.”