Sierra Madre’s Library Board of Trustees has hired a Consultant, and his name is Joseph R. Matthews

– Courtesy photo

By Sierra Madre Tattler

I know that what follows isn’t information you found on the Library survey postcard that went out last month, so I’ll bring it up here. Apparently the Library Board of Trustees hired a noted consultant by the name of Joseph R. Matthews.

Joe is a sought after expert on Libraries, and he has some interesting theories on how they should function, both now and into the future. I am not certain in what capacity he was hired, or how much sway he has with those Library worthies. I guess we’ll just have to wait a little and see.

But he did write a notable book, one that could very well have caught the attention of certain concerned residents in Sierra Madre. So much so that they might want to change the way a library here gets done.

It is called “The Customer Focused Library,” and if the information put out by his publisher is any indication, it must be a very exciting one or at least as far as books about libraries go. At $50 bucks a pop, and for a mere 95 pages, including pictures, it had better be.

Here is a notable blurb, which comes to us from the book’s publisher, an outfit called ABC-CLIO Solutions.

“Public libraries aren’t just libraries anymore. More and more, they are becoming alternative Internet cafes, music stores, movie stores, study halls, and more. But instead of making changes piecemeal to accommodate a changing world and a changing audience, it is time for libraries to be reconceived from the ground up—or more precisely, from the outside in.”

It would be pretty cool if the library did have a Starbucks, like Barnes & Noble. I know it would get my kids there. Just bring your laptop, Beats headphones, Spotify, and $25 for cappuccinos.

Don’t get me wrong, all of this isn’t necessarily bad. It certainly is modern, cutting edge, and up to date. As they say. And I am sure it is a well-intentioned effort to make libraries relevant again to a world that is increasingly overwhelmed by the decentralizing forces of the digital revolution hardly the easiest thing to do.

But here’s the point. Aren’t these all the sorts of things kids and most adults for that matter, already have at home? Do people really need to go to a library to take in all that the Internet already has to offer? Can’t they just pull out their laptops and do the same things anywhere else? Like sprawled out on a couch at home with their feet up?

It seems to me that the biggest challenge libraries face nowadays is getting people off their computers and back into books. Reading can be hard, it takes real effort. And who has time for that when you’re too busy doing other things? Like surfing the Internet?

What Matthews is offering here is a kind of capitulation to the very forces that are making libraries increasingly irrelevant these days. And apparently to him what library customers consume is no longer of importance. Now it is only a matter of getting them into the building that counts.

But these aren’t the sorts of things you need to go to a library to experience. And I am not sure that very many would.

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