I read something today that moved me more than anything I’d experienced in a long time. I’m going to share them here with you. I might comment later, but for now I just want to make sure they are spread as far and wide as possible….

These statements were results of conversations sparked during and after the “In the Foothills: A Not-Quite-Summit on the Future of Libraries” at Darien Library on March 26, 2009. I love that these conversations are taking place and now I am more inspired than ever to hold an event like this for Colorado libraries at Boulder Public before the year is over.

The Darien Statements on the Library and Librarians
Written and endorsed by John Blyberg, Kathryn Greenhill, and Cindi Trainor.

The Purpose of the Library

The purpose of the Library is to preserve the integrity of civilization.

The Library has a moral obligation to adhere to its purpose despite social, economic, environmental, or political influences. The purpose of the Library will never change.

The Library is infinite in its capacity to contain, connect and disseminate knowledge; librarians are human and ephemeral, therefore we must work together to ensure the Library’s permanence.

Individual libraries serve the mission of their parent institution or governing body, but the purpose of the Library overrides that mission when the two come into conflict.

Why we do things will not change, but how we do them will.

A clear understanding of the Library’s purpose, its role, and the role of librarians is essential to the preservation of the Library.

The Role of the Library

The Library:

* Provides the opportunity for personal enlightenment.
* Encourages the love of learning.
* Empowers people to fulfill their civic duty.
* Facilitates human connections.
* Preserves and provides materials.
* Expands capacity for creative expression.
* Inspires and perpetuates hope.

The Role of Librarians

Librarians:

* Are stewards of the Library.
* Connect people with accurate information.
* Assist people in the creation of their human and information networks.
* Select, organize and facilitate creation of content.
* Protect access to content and preserve freedom of information and expression.
* Anticipate, identify and meet the needs of the Library’s community.

The Preservation of the Library

Our methods need to rapidly change to address the profound impact of information technology on the nature of human connection and the transmission and consumption of knowledge.

If the Library is to fulfill its purpose in the future, librarians must commit to a culture of continuous operational change, accept risk and uncertainty as key properties of the profession, and uphold service to the user as our most valuable directive.

As librarians, we must:

* Promote openness, kindness, and transparency among libraries and users.
* Eliminate barriers to cooperation between the Library and any person, institution, or entity within or outside the Library.
* Choose wisely what to stop doing.
* Preserve and foster the connections between users and the Library.
* Harness distributed expertise to serve the needs of the local and global community.
* Help individuals to learn and to use new tools to create a more robust path to knowledge.
* Engage in activism on behalf of the Library if its integrity is externally threatened.
* Endorse procedures only if they guide librarians or users to excellence.
* Identify and implement the most humane and efficient methods, tools, standards and practices.
* Adopt technology that keeps data open and free, abandon technology that does not.
* Be willing and have the expertise to make frequent radical changes.
* Hire the best people and let them do their job; remove staff who cannot or will not.
* Trust each other and trust the users.

We have faith that the citizens of our communities will continue to fulfill their civic responsibility by preserving the Library.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

And thanks to my friend, James Ascher, an amazing librarian, I found this blog post I’d overlooked last week, Virtual Dave’s “Bullet Point: “We live in Shakespearian Times.”

Dave discusses the challenges we face in the field and ponders how he (and anyone) can stay optimistic. He writes,

As I go around the country I encounter too many librarians who see the vision, who embrace change, but have grown too tired and discouraged to hope again. They are quieted by the scars of past optimism.

A little further down he says,

Between the Annoyed Librarians of the world and the perceived resistance to change in the field, isn’t it all just a lost cause? How can we overcome? How can we continue to step over the ruble of past initiatives, and broken momentum, and ignore the anticipation of disappointment while once again stepping into the firing line of positive change?

His answer is encouragement. I hope you’re right, Dave. And, here’s what I’d like to share with you– your post gave me (and James, and many others) encouragement. Thank you. I hope that in some small way I can return the favor some day.

I was inspired to read someone remind us that,

As I have said before, we too often undersell the importance and raw power of what we do. We are a nobel[sic] profession. We don’t shelve books, and change toner cartridges – we maintain an infrastructure for social action. We don’t reference resources, and catalog artifacts – we teach and inspire.

Right now our city is undergoing a budget cutting process that I feel does not take into account what place the library holds in the community. We also have other departments who are trying to assert increasing influence over service provision and even website content. Too often I’ve heard us referred to as “a city department”. Yes– we are a city department, but more imporantly we’re also a part of something much larger. I’ve found it hard to resist despair over this even while biting my tongue about it publically.

I want us to advocate, I want us to not take it lying down. These words confirmed for me that my instincts are probably right. Why should we be quiet about what happens to us? Why should we wait on other department’s decisions? Why don’t we feel that we have the right to be as outspoken for ourselves as the rest of the city? This is Boulder, and this is the Wild West– our culture here is to not take things lying down. Our meetings go on forever because we have a history of vibrant citizen advocacy. We should embrace that history and acknowledge that we are a part of it.

Audacious action has worked for libraries before. I think of the Seattle Public Library closings as just one example.

So I end with the paragraphs the inspired me to write this post. Inspired to me to face the next week with optimism. Because I don’t think I can say it any better than Dave did:

So too can librarians overcome the crushing forces of mediocrity and cynicism – but we must believe that we can.

Faced with the enormities of these tasks – terrorism, economic disaster, apathy – standing up at a meeting and speaking truth to power? Simple. Faced with the real issues we must face – I can take on the added committee assignment, or backhand comment. How do I stay optimistic? I realize first the issues I face are miniscule to the good I can do. How do I get inspired to face intransigence, or laziness, or ineptitude? I look right past them at the real goal, and those who really need me.

Block me, and I will go around you. Build a wall, and I will build a door. Lock the door and I will break a window. And if I don’t have have a leader to inspire me, I will lead. If I don’t have a team that will support me, I will recruit a team from beyond the organizational boundaries – every policy has a loophole, every system has a hidden reward.

I’m gathering up my saw, screwdriver, hinges, and some wood-screws. Let’s build some doors together!