What was I supposed to be doing again?

I'm having a hard time maintaining my cynical pose. That devil-may-care "let's see what the idjits do this time" half-on-the-verge-of-laughter lighthearted jazz riff of a mood that I try to lock myself into to keep from getting angry...or crying.

We're losing another great colleague. Just got the word. I have watched so many people in the last few years just walk away.

I have a friend who asks "Why libraries anymore? What's the point? I can just [...google it/use google answers/buy the book...]" Well, I don't know. What are we here for? I just spent thirty minutes googling library mission statements and I'm not any closer to knowing.

Library missions statements share some fancy-sounding words in common: information, lifelong-learning, entertainment, connection. But when you really try to parse out the meaning--where is it? Seventy-five, a hundred years ago, when you talked about what a library meant to the community, people might talk about "bettering oneself". That concept seems remarkably old-fashioned, but at least there's some focus there. What, in a practical sense, does "providing resources that enhance and contribute to individual knowledge, enlightenment, and enjoyment in the most efficient manner possible" really mean? (sorry Germantown Library--you're not being singled out--there are many statements out there with nearly the same language) "Providing resources that enhance enjoyment" could be talking about anywhere from a golf course to a sex shop. " Contributing to knowledge and enlightenment" is all well and good, but wow, it's pretty broad and a tall order to boot. And what does that mean on a practical level? When the goals of our mission statements conflict, what wins out? If a book full of obvious errors and misinformation (anti-knowledge, anti-enlightenment) is cause for much enjoyment in the community, what then? And if the community seems to prefer enjoyment to enlightenment, well then, how do we divide the budget?

Selling "bettering oneself" at the beginning of the twentieth century was a good move on the part of libraries. People believed in that as a virtue, as an essential part of the "american dream". The idea of "bettering oneself" was well-defined in the popular mindset and tied up in the values of the community, so that even people who didn't see a direct benefit to themselves from a library were willing to see the greater social benefit. That concise, easy to envision mission meant support, community involvement, and respect for the institution and the people who worked there.

Skip to 2006. What are we selling here and now? Are we the free book and movie rental place? Community center? Social service angency? Place to warehouse the mentally ill, jobless and all those unpleasant and slightly scary youth? Temple of knowledge? Free computers? We're all these things, and it's a confusing mess that's diluting our real meaning in the community and sending so many of my coworkers spiraling away into retirement or other (less stressful, better defined and often more lucrative) positions. So if we are all these things, and we have to be all these things, give me two words to help me bring it all together. Something like "better oneself" for the 21st century.

Because right now, the only two words that cover it all is "I want..."

And people want everything.

There's fewer and fewer good people standing by my side every day now.

And I just don't have everything to give.