The Trustee manual: This is an manual put out by Indiana
State to outlay the details of what
being on a library board is.
I was a pretty big fan of the clip art and old school formatting of this
article. it is an honor and a privilege to be a library
board member you know! All joking aside I enjoyed this manual from the get go.
I like how it really challenges the board member to do more. Know the terms,
understand the system, be friendly with the manager- since you don't have to
get a masters to be a library board member I think it's
pretty necessary that Indiana
lays out what exactly a board member should be. My favorite point that this
article made was that this job "deserves your best effort," just
because this is a volunteer position doesn't mean it isn't important, and if
board members don't take it seriously then they should step down. It made me
wonder who are these people that join library boards.
Public Libraries, Values, Trust and E-Government: This article looks
at the how the values that US public libraries have built continue and maintain
as the technology and uses of libraries change. And how libraries are a big
access point for many to get information from the government.
Community Leadership through Public Library E-Government Services: This
article explores what is now expected of public libraries in terms of being a
place for people to not only gain access to online government services but to
get instruction on how as well.
Responsibility Rolls Down: Public Libraries and
the Social and Policy Obligations of Ensuring Access to E-government and
Government Information: This article looks at the
history of public libraries and the formation of E-government, how they both
effected eachother’s growth, and with suggestions for the future.
I think it's troublesome and interesting how Libraries really have become this
catch all for social services. We have tax forms, we have tax HELP,
unemployment sign up, at Bloomfeild there has been blood pressure testing and
STI testing. I think it's amazing that we amass all these services for our patrons,
but I also think sometimes folks assume that we actually do everything. In one
of my other classes a MCPL worker talked about how a patron asked her when MCPL
did testing for deaf children, not if, when. She was able to refer this patron
to a place in town where their child could get tested, but I think it speaks to
a crazy precedent that the library has set.
I also think it's scary that in these difficult times when funding is
getting cut that all of these responsibilities are falling on libraries. I don't
blame to other government agencies, they're loosing their funding too, but I
think it's very unfortunate. Not just because libraries are becoming THE PLACE of e-government help it's not
as if we're getting more money to better meet these needs. Librarians aren't the people that should be
helping folks figure out how to navigate Child Protective Service (for
example), because we're only figuring out how to do it as we do it, someone
from Child Protective Services should be doing that, they understand the
system. It kind of seems
like a big mess.
I agree with everything you said about how the library has become a catch-all for society's needs and ills. In addition to the whole funding issue, there's also the problem of liability. With librarians learning as they go while helping people with complicated legal processes, mistakes (potentially devastating ones) are bound to happen, and public libraries/librarians are going to be blamed for them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comment about the assumptions many people make about the public library. In a way I almost feel that the government is living in a gilded arena where they can only see the benefits to themselves, but not to everyone else. It is interesting that people simply assume a librarian is able to know everything, when really we are learning as we go through a process of errors and fixes.
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