Comments on: Talking to the Information Goddess

By: Liz

Liz — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:51:38 +0000

I’ve been in libraries long enough to have seen them loan out paintings, vinyl records, and children’s toys. Movies raised eyebrows, first in tapes and then in DVDs. (“Why offer THAT? They can get movies at Blockbuster and they’ll steal ours!”)

What people have forgotten, and none of us are old enough to remember — there once was resistance to libraries carrying NOVELS as opposed to Serious Non-fiction. Then the first novels had to be “uplifting literature” — not mere entertainment.

Such change requires time, more than anything. Who would question a public library carrying novels nowadays?

By: Terry

Terry — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:00:28 +0000

It’s funny because at some point in my library’s past, we circulated paintings. I think at a micro level you have some libraries who are willing to circulate anything (puppets, tools, people, etc).

On a macro level, I think you need a few different factors: a shift in attitudes (often generational), support from the vendors most libraries use, and public expectations.

Back to your question, DVDs now make up 50% of our circs, but there are branches which are still making the transition from VHS to DVD because of the technology their patrons have. I can’t say there was any resistance, but there was a high amount of caution especially since the early days of DVD resembled the VHS/Betamax horror.

Of course, now that DVDs are a library staple there’s Blu-ray, which we aren’t going to touch — especially since the real future seems to be downloadable/streaming movies.

By: Boz

Boz — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:38:11 +0000

I wonder, as there such resistence to including audio and video in library collections when they were new? These are now normal, expected library assets. What, if anything, finally made the difference?