So, how do we as librarians parlay this into remaining relevant? To talk like a marketer, what part of the reptilian brain does a library satisfy? It seems to me that public libraries try to be all things to all people, maybe this is our greatest weakness? We are diffuse and have limited focus… Are we books, or DVDs, or MP3s, or games, or programming, or the Internet? We are all of these things and much more.

At their most basic level, public libraries attempt to do two things, provide answers, and entertainment. The question is how do we do this for such a wide audience that is comprised of all ages, races, and religions and do it successfully in a world where everyone can’t be pleased all the time? Maybe we should concentrate on doing a few things really well, instead of just attempting to do many things well. Of course, each library would have to decide what those things should be for their own communities…

so the question for libraries is: if porn satisfies perviness, what is the equivalent need libraries fulfill? and what is the best way to do that? rather than getting hung up on how they have fulfilled that need in the past (eg. by lending out books), they need to keep seeking tools to answer that need (but first they have to define the need properly).

The interesting part is that this happens within a network structure where sites play specific roles, with less popular sites doing more scanning and less aggregation and more popular sites doing the reverse (think B^2 with its short, link-centric posts and swarm of feeder sites). The neat thing about this ecosystem is that, like your local wetland, it sort of developed over time of its own accord. Maybe that’s why blogs seem to know what they’re good at: the network, which is where blogs really get their value, evolved to do what it does.

There was an article about a decade ago in the New Yorker about male porn stars. A sad, moving piece, oddly. At any rate, what struck me was that almost no one in porn liked being there, but thought of it as a ticket to a better place. As librarians, do we sometimes envision the library we work in as the porn mill, which will hopefully evolve into the dream we had at some point?