Don't Go Solo

摘要

I recently attended award ceremonies for each of LJ's Library-Aware Community Award winners, the Canton, MI, Skokie, IL, and Hartford, CT, public libraries. For all three, the community has stood up to say they value the services the library provides to the community. The competition was tough: more than 100 libraries applied. With so many communities supporting the library, you would think we are in the golden age of libraries. And yet just this past January the Pew Institute report Library Services in the Digital Age stated that only 22 percent of those surveyed say that they know all or most of the services their libraries now offer. Ouch. Okay, so there's still work to be done. But perhaps the work isn't what you might expect.