Thursday, January 15, 2009

022/365: Libraries are for Books!


Today started off pretty great. I woke up to SNOW!!! (Or as my friends like to call it... "WONS"!) This is the first real snow we got in South Jersey this winter and I was psyched! I took my camera out and shot several pictures of the snow covered lake behind the library.

An hour later I received an e-mail from our Associate Director of the library. There was a Friends of the Library meeting last night where they discussed our 2009 budget. We had a line in the budget for gaming consoles for the library. This was a BIG DEAL!!! We need Wiis at all of our branches! If we want to entice people (especially teens) to come to the library, then we have to be able to give them what they want... and people want to play video games!

We were informed in this e-mail that the Friends did not approve the line for the gaming equipment. We were told that the Friends declined to fund gaming equipment because they believe libraries are for books...

I'm sorry. What?! How can anyone say that and still expect the library to stay up and running in today's technology driven society? We have to change with the times people! If we want to stay in business then we need to give the people what they want. I know it kind of sucks sometimes, but the people want Best Sellers, and DVDs, and video game programs. Okay. Confession: These are the things I want, too!!

It's now been over 6 hours and I'm still fuming. Probably because I have no one of authority here to vent to. It's just so frustrating when the people who control a nice portion of your budget can't see that they're doing more harm than good...

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