Readings Reactions Week 7

Dan Cain

IN the Public Trust: A Reference Manual for Indiana Public Library Board Members

This manual gave a detailed overview of what being a library board member entails.

It was interesting for me to find out how the library board is meant to interact with the library director and staff. When I was hired at my former library, I had wondered why I was being interviewed by one person, but had to wait to be approved by people who had never met me. It makes more sense now that I know the library director is actually the delegate of the governing library board.

In preparation for the attending a board meeting, I was reading through some of the MCPL meeting minutes of past board meetings, which can be found here http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/general_info/library_board.html. For the most part, the minutes seemed to follow the guidance of this manual, with a preset agenda, following Robert’s Rules of Order, and making changes to the board meeting schedule available to the public.

Paul Jaeger and Kenneth Fleischmann

Public Libraries, Values, Trust, and E-Government

This article talks about how the values of public libraries and the trust placed in them by the community have led to a central role in e-government.

This article encapsulated the reasons I became interested in librarianship in the first place. I really liked Gorman’s summation of library values as “stewardship, service, intellectual freedom, rationalism, literacy and learning, equity of access to recorded knowledge and information, privacy, and democracy” (35). I also think the point that libraries are becoming hubs for e-government is something that libraries should emphasize as an important community role that deserves funding.

Amelia Gibson, Charles McClure, John Bertot, Jassica McGilvray, and Jordan Andrade

Community Leadership through Public Library E-Government Services

This article showcases some the drawbacks of public library involvement in e-government and provides steps to overcome them.

I’m glad I read this article after the Jaeger and Fleischmann article, as it expanded my thoughts on e-government. I hadn’t thought about how other government entities were passing on many of the financial costs and service burden to libraries. This underscores the idea that libraries need to emphasize their role as e-government providers, both to the community, as well as the government. Such an increase in responsibilities should correspond to some increase in funding, but the government seems to need reminding that free services aren’t really free.

Paul Jaeger and John Bertot

Responsibility Rolls Down: Public Libraries and the Social and Policy Obligations of Ensuring Access to E-government and Government Information

This article gives a history lesson on the role of government information in public libraries, showing how there has been an adversely large increase in public library responsibilities in the last thirty years.

“On one hand, libraries have less funding so they have to provide reduced services… On the other hand, the need for libraries’ services has dramatically increased because of the economic crisis” (103). This quote sums up the feeling I get from this article, that libraries are in an unmanageable situation. This article makes clear that public libraries cannot continue to function and do not deserve to function under such intense pressure from both the government and the public. Getting the point across that public libraries provide these valuable e-government services is the solution, but the question is how.