September 2009 - Local Resource of the Month: Ann Arbor District Library

Our A2Ethics.org September Local Resource of the Month is the Ann Arbor District Library. Aside from the fact the Ann Arbor District Library has a good collection of books and other media on our favorite ethics topics,  the Ann Arbor District Library and libraries in general, highlight several current ethical issues.

The first ethical issue. Libraries store, organize, give space and identity to all of humanity’s contested wisdom and jumbled  memories--significantly they are houses devoted to the known world and represent the ambitions of the library’s founders and maintainers. Libraries are houses of power for the people in power and display first and foremost their preferred ideas of the order of all things, including the ordering of what human memories should be saved and how they should be bound.

While most would say that these terms...contested, identity, the powerful and such are just our postmodernist biases showing, the idea first that knowledge is power, and second, that knowledge is defined by the powerful, is distinctly unpostmodern.

One way back and long ago, but still fascinating example: the Hellenistic age’s King Ptolemy of Egypt. Yes, that same King Ptolemy responsible for one of the ancient wonders of the world we know as the Library of Alexandria. This library and the story of King Ptolemy is brought to life in a really great book that you can get on loan at the Ann Arbor District Library: Alberto Manguel’s The Library at Night.

(Another aside: before you put the Library of Alexandria on your “100 places to go before you die” list, this wonder of the world is no more. Yes, Alexandria is still around. The old Library, however, is vanished. That is why we are suggesting you include on your 100 places to visit...our resource of September the Ann Arbor District Library. It is closer and there are 5 locations to choose from.)

But to go back to King Ptolemy. As part of his ambition for the Library to become the one and only monument to human memory, he decreed that all ships entering the port of Alexandria must turn over their books in their possession. Not so they could be burned or destroyed, as we might expect. Instead, he wanted all the books confiscated so they could be copied. King Ptolemy’s desire was to collect and be the keeper of all knowledge for all time. And further, he wanted to make certain that all knowledge was available and at his fingertips---in one place. Sound familiar?

That same lust for amassing all of the world’s knowledge in one place resembles in many ways several projects promoting and selling the abilities of the World Wide Web, from Project Gutenberg to the more controversial Google plan for digitizing the books from the stacks of university libraries, a plan that the University of Michigan  has signed onto.

To return to the ethics of it all, both the ancient and modern ambitions, while grandly bold, do appear rather sinister and as showcases for unhealthy megalomania and unethical hubris. Among the many ethical questions about these projects that we think should be answered:
 
Who should benefit the most from these projects? The reading public or the groups doing the copying?

What should be copied first and why?

Why is it that we think the knowledge from our books should be owned anyway? And if we do, under what circumstances is it right and good to say that knowledge is someone’s property?

And finally, why must we put all knowledge under one virtual or real roof and in one place to begin with?

This last question is a second important ethical issue facing public libraries today. There is very real possibility that, like the Library of Alexandria, several of our local libraries will vanish too. No, not because of looting and booty-taking in times of war. Instead, they will be politically vanished, because of economic cutbacks during times that are hard.

So, where’s the love? We were inspired in part to include the Ann Arbor District Library as our September local resource, because of a story we read about a recent protest campaign in Capetown, South Africa led by schoolchildren. The purpose of their march? To get better school facilities, supplies and to save and get better funding for their libraries.

So, this incredible protest, got us to thinking. What if our libraries faced their own political vanishing? It is not, after all so unlikely.

At least, not for the libraries in our state. Consider our own state library, Michigan’s memory and repository. The governor and the state legislature are scrambling right now to deal with massive short and long-term budget deficits. Funds for supporting the Library of Michigan have been on the chopping block. To be sure, the governor and the legislature have not yet lowered the final axe. But a recent reprieve from the governor could be only as long as it takes you to check out a library book.   

So, what are the moral arguments over the public funding of our libraries?

In tough times, it is likely that cuts are made to services and in institutions considered nonessential by the powers and those in a position to vanish publicly funded services and institutions. These services are thought to be unnecessary for people to survive. One argument then for cutting funds for library services is that libraries are not crucial for our communities. Librarians are, after all, not first responders. They are not the police, firefighters or health care workers, all professions we need in any emergency.

Not only that, new technologies, such as the web and social networks, appear to make library services obsolete. According to this view, much of the information on the web, like a library’s services is free. So why expend money to keep up a depreciating asset like a library building and the books it stores?

Likewise, this thinking goes that libraries are similar to sports and other arts. Such goods are more likely to find private support, say wealthy patrons or saviors whose own lives have been saved because of their access to the refuge of a public library and the educational riches it offered them when they were struggling. 

Further, the “let them be privatized”argument feeds off appeals for business approaches and efficiency in running public services. According to this view, there are too many libraries that already duplicate services. As a result, consolidation and cutting are in order.

We can see the benefits of the web and know that it is, can and should become an historical memory keeper as well as a free and open educational resource, not dissimilar to our local libraries. Nevertheless, in its present form, the web is not the most accurate and truthful of memory keepers. Most crucially, it does not give us what we need to make sense of our history.  Just as the Alexandria Library of old vanished, so too, communications on the web are fleeting and according to one common statistic flying about, over 70% are gone within four months of their being posted. And then there is the more solid fact that access to the web is not universal. In some areas of the United States, the local library is the only place where people can get routine access to the web. 

And while we can see the potential benefit in creating specialized libraries that are more efficient and run like businesses, public libraries have come to be affiliated with places. The library is among the few community places left that is not a commercialized public space. What does this mean? A library is not a shopping mall. It may offer a few commercial services or even consider itself a type of “community brand,” but libraries themselves are not on sale or for sale. Until, we decide as a community to put them up for sale. And libraries do not benefit the public by catering to specialized markets as the efficiency experts want.

Boutique libraries, like boutique schools (known as magnet high schools...specializing in the sciences, the arts or hotel management) assume that everyone in a particular city wants to learn about only one subject. Imagine Ann Arbor with a library that specialized in...ethics resources. We might love it at A2ethics.org and would go there often. But we know that not everyone in Ann Arbor is as interested in ethics as we are.
 

The point is that libraries then have no commercial agenda or niche market to attract. Notably, you don’t have to buy anything at a public library. Our libraries are just great public places for people of varied economic and cultural backgrounds to gather; to meet with friends and strangers to attend community lectures; to join the children’s storytelling groups; to do school projects together; to access information, chat or play games; to find new books and other media; or to sit and watch other people walk by.

This idea then that libraries are not crucial to communities, even in the toughest of times does not sit well. Let’s face it, for a few in the community the library is a place where people sit, because they are tired of walking. This is not to say that public libraries are for people with no place to go, but it is to say that public libraries are for everyone in the community. And that if you wanted to find out how to get up and start walking again, the local library is a good place to start and can be your school.

In order to get ourselves out of hard times, we need a diverse set of educational institutions in all of our communities. One of these educational institutions is and remains the public library.  We think that given all the moral arguments about libraries and their value today, that they are in fact necessary for us to survive. Why? Because libraries are part of our education system. And in order for us to get back up on our feet in these economic times, we are going to need all of our people, not just a few, have free access to information, resources and education. Not all of our education institutions are so welcoming to everyone as the public library is.  And for some people, the public library supplements lifelong learning. For the majority, the public library symbolizes community support and interest in education itself.  

Yes, librarians may not be as crucial in an emergency as first responders. But they are crucial for us to get out of an economic emergency like the one we are currently living through. Without a forceful educational response, which support for libraries signals, we may well become more efficient and survive,  but we will not expand our knowledge and thrive.