Blog
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The Life and Death of Libraries
Across the country, public library systems are being gutted as states and localities slash their budgets. Libraries are an easy target – often seen as non-essential services. But our support of libraries is a test: do we believe communities are important? The truth is that public libraries don’t need to be protected from budget cuts; their budgets need to be expanded. Here’s why.
In Illinois two weeks ago, the Alliance Library System laid off 22 staff people, shuttering entire functions that support libraries throughout its region. On the same day I was the keynote speaker for an online conference on innovation in public libraries, which attracted people from across the U.S. and other countries.
When growing up in Upstate New York, we had a fine library for a small town. It sat right at the town’s center for everyone to see and use. But I do not pine for those days. Instead, as in so many communities, the bonds that once existed in many communities have been fractured. Nostalgia won’t save libraries or give them new purpose; only a bold and aggressive vision for the future will.
During my talk, I made the case for libraries: at a time when so much of society is fragmented, when people often search for news and information that simply confirms their already-held beliefs and positions, when the demographics of communities are dramatically shifting, and when too many organizations are simply looking inward to find ways to perpetuate their mere existence, we need libraries to help re-engage and re-connect people.
Libraries are natural boundary spanning organizations in communities, and they’re needed now more than ever before. They can create safe spaces to bring people together across dividing lines to see and hear one another; help communities hold up a mirror to themselves about their history and culture, and the implications for the future; provide access to technology and online services that otherwise would be unavailable for many people; and teach children reading skills, love of books and knowledge, and the ability to engage their imagination.
Libraries are a vital strategic community investment – nothing less. And yet some people would have us believe they are mere add-ons, something nice to have, even a luxury. But we need them to help foster productive norms, relationships, spaces and conversations that are essential to a community functioning as a community. For many libraries this will mean adopting a new orientation – one of turning outward toward communities rather than just providing services.
Many good people have been working on this challenge, including the Urban Library Council and my good friend, Carlton Sears, a Harwood Public Innovators Coach, who is head of the public library system for Youngstown and Mahoning Valley in Ohio. Moreover, The Harwood Institute is forging a new partnership with Rutgers University School of Communications and Information to help prepare libraries and librarians to turn outward and strengthen communities and public life.
My point today is this: our call shouldn’t be to “protect” libraries as essential community assets; instead, we must actively grow and expand libraries to ensure that we have communities that work for all people.
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Protecting The Urge Within Us
How do we protect our urge?
How does our urge within help us to stay focused and create change?
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Woman football coach shows the way
I can
imagine many people might be asking why Calvin
Coolidge High School in Washington, D.C. named
Natalie Randolph, a woman, as their head
football coach. But when I read about her, I
didn’t wonder why a woman was the head coach,
but how the rest of us, of either gender, can
be clear on what really matters.
Randolph was the focus of a lengthy article in yesterday’s New York Times: A Coach Used to Tests Insists Players Pass Theirs. In speaking of her players, Randolph told the Times, “I hope that they know that I really don’t care about winning football games. But I do care about school.”
When kids learned of her appointment, one said, “I was like ‘Ms. Randolph? The science teacher here? No way.’” But even though she may not look like the prototypical football coach, she has the kids’ attention.
The Times reported, “After school, Randolph’s players must attend an hour-long study hall, where they do homework and receive tutoring or help with SAT preparation. She also requires each player to have his teachers fill out a weekly behavior and progress report.”
The coach also doles out consequences when her players don’t live up to the standards – from making them run more drills after practice to being barred from games. She means what she says.
In terms of coaching, I believe deeply in what Randolph is doing. She sees clearly what her role is: to help cultivate growing boys into young men. She knows that the most important skills these kids can learn are not how to throw a football or run a play, but to be prepared for life.
But beyond coaching, Randolph has a message for the rest of us who are not on a ball field, but in communities. She has adopted a clear orientation about what matters and the values that animate it. She is willing to step forward and be intentional about making her orientation and values real throughout her daily work and environment.
Each of us is engaged in something that calls upon us to have equal clarity about our orientation – about the direction in which we turn ourselves – and about the values that must be exercised to make that orientation come alive – to put it into play.
So, today, I do not celebrate Randolph because she is a woman in a traditional man’s role; rather, I celebrate her because she is a person who has made a clear declaration of purpose and is taking action with a true sense of conviction.
On the thing that matters most to you, what is your orientation? In what direction are you turned? What choices are involved in this turn? And what values must you exercise to make that orientation real? -
The BP Oil Meltdown
Like you, I
have been watching the BP oil spill spread
across the Gulf Coast. The potential negative
effects are beyond imagination. Or, as BP might
say, they’re “Beyond Petroleum,” the
company’s clever tagline. So, when things go
wrong, as they have with BP, I’m wondering:
is there a difference between contrition and
responsibility?
Since the spill, the head of BP, Tony Hayward, has been on nearly every television and radio program, in newspapers and online, and seemingly everywhere else. He’s done an admirable job of representing his company. One can only imagine the number of crisis management consultants that have schooled the BP exec in pinpointing the exact language and pitch to use.
But saying you’re sorry – indeed, being contrite – should never be confused with embracing responsibility and, ultimately, accounting for one actions. For someone like Tiger Woods to be contrite but not accept responsibility is one thing; for BP it is something entirely different. One is largely a personal matter that has become public; the other is a public matter that directly affects people’s lives.
I often fear that we have conflated contrition and responsibility. We enable people, organizations and, yes, corporations, to proclaim how sorry they are, only for them to return to business as usual. There are press conferences, memos, solemn meetings, long talks, among other things, in which those who have done something wrong, are contrite, even ask for forgiveness, and then everything is deemed okay.
Except oftentimes everything is not okay. 200,000 gallons of crude oil spill into the Gulf Coast each day, wreaking havoc on fisherman and their families, the fragile eco-system, tourism, and the health of entire communities. One estimate is that the oil now covers 2,000 square miles, a figure sure to expand. No, things are not okay in the Gulf Coast.
Responsibility would require BP to own the accident, to find safer ways to drill oil, to work with federal and state officials to clean up the mess, to support local communities to adjust to this new reality. During the Exxon Valdez spill, Exxon made all sorts of pledges, only to tie up matters in court for years.
Contrition is a new short-hand for getting out of bad situations. Offer the quick apology, give the appearance of change and improvement, ask to be absolved, and then keeping moving. It’s the advice that celebrities get when they get caught in compromising situations; same for famous and not-so-famous athletes; same for corporations. Unfortunately, it has become the same approach for many of us, too.
The tagline “Beyond Petroleum” is meant to signal that BP cares more about simply drilling oil and selling gasoline. They now need to show us what it means to live out this tagline and account for their actions. Contrition is not enough.