It will probably happen. The Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) will be swallowed up by Hennepin County Public Library. In some ways this is a very good thing, and probably inevitable. In fact, there are members of the MPL staff who believe that the hiring of the current director was engineered to accomplish what has now come to pass. I've always believed that people aren't really smart enough to institute conspiracies at this level. I'm also willing to admit that I may be wrong.
However, whether or not this is the case is fairly irrelevant. MPL is a dinosaur. It has had a collecting policiy for many, many, years that was out of the mainstream of public library practice. The beautiful new building, and the satellite at the caverns at the U of M, house thousands of volumes of books that have never been read, and will never be read. In some cases, there are even two copies of these books. This represents the "just in case" thinking that once prevailed in libraries and in businesses. This is a really expensive way to run a railroad, or library, and has contributed in some measure to the financial disaster that is MPL. It is horribly out of fashion, and very expensive.
Hennepin County Library, in contrast, is a "just in time" organization. The money goes to where it is demonstrably needed, rather than where it might be needed based on annecdotal evidence. Hennepin County is a rational library. Minneapolis Public Library runs on impressions, past practice, and guesswork. HCL is a modern library, and has won many awards and kudos. MPL, in contrast, has a low per volume and per capita circulation right up there with other dinosaurs such as Cleveland and St. Louis library systems.
However, the dinosaur library somehow represents the best in our city. It has an old fashioned, endearing quality. It caters to the kooks, the cranks, the artists, and the weird. It has collections that no one west of New York possesses on the slim chance that someone might want to use them. It does not discriminate based on the popularity of a book title, as HCL does. The tyrannical majority has not ruled at MPL until recently.
And so, even though it will almost certainly happen despite the serious practical obstacles to a merger, I feel a little wistful. MPL represents an effort to hold back the onslaught of cookie-cutter culture that the wildly successful libraries in Hennepin County promote. If the merger results in MPL abandoning its idiosyncratic collections, we will be a much less rich community.
We will be, in fact, a cold Omaha. While I'm sure Omaha is a perfectly fine place, it does not have a reputation as a fine, interesting, place. We need diversity to retain our competitive edge, and the death of MPL will be one more attack on diversity and one more step toward boring mediocrity.
However, whether or not this is the case is fairly irrelevant. MPL is a dinosaur. It has had a collecting policiy for many, many, years that was out of the mainstream of public library practice. The beautiful new building, and the satellite at the caverns at the U of M, house thousands of volumes of books that have never been read, and will never be read. In some cases, there are even two copies of these books. This represents the "just in case" thinking that once prevailed in libraries and in businesses. This is a really expensive way to run a railroad, or library, and has contributed in some measure to the financial disaster that is MPL. It is horribly out of fashion, and very expensive.
Hennepin County Library, in contrast, is a "just in time" organization. The money goes to where it is demonstrably needed, rather than where it might be needed based on annecdotal evidence. Hennepin County is a rational library. Minneapolis Public Library runs on impressions, past practice, and guesswork. HCL is a modern library, and has won many awards and kudos. MPL, in contrast, has a low per volume and per capita circulation right up there with other dinosaurs such as Cleveland and St. Louis library systems.
However, the dinosaur library somehow represents the best in our city. It has an old fashioned, endearing quality. It caters to the kooks, the cranks, the artists, and the weird. It has collections that no one west of New York possesses on the slim chance that someone might want to use them. It does not discriminate based on the popularity of a book title, as HCL does. The tyrannical majority has not ruled at MPL until recently.
And so, even though it will almost certainly happen despite the serious practical obstacles to a merger, I feel a little wistful. MPL represents an effort to hold back the onslaught of cookie-cutter culture that the wildly successful libraries in Hennepin County promote. If the merger results in MPL abandoning its idiosyncratic collections, we will be a much less rich community.
We will be, in fact, a cold Omaha. While I'm sure Omaha is a perfectly fine place, it does not have a reputation as a fine, interesting, place. We need diversity to retain our competitive edge, and the death of MPL will be one more attack on diversity and one more step toward boring mediocrity.
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