There was an op-ed piece in the Strib a few days ago by John Gonyou, singing the praises of Depression-era librarian Gratia Countryman. Gratia, the director of the Minneapolis Public Library (MPL) for many years, was unhampered by bureaucrats, unions, and, it seems, city government. She saw a need and she met it. The pull-back from Gratia's expansionist activities began as early as the 1950's, when MPL no longer provided deposit collections for public schools.
Although it would be wonderful to operate public libraries, and MPL in particular, in the spirit of Gratia, John Gonyou's piece is one more bit of romantic thinking about the state of public libraries in 2007. To put it bluntly, librarians missed the boat at least a decade ago, resisting the free, uncontrolled, and unevaluated information provided by the Internet. Because we abdicated management of the information explosion to the technies, the opportunity passed us by. At MPL, we insisted on purchasing obscure print business directories of foreign countries, such as Argentina, that were never used, perpetuating the just-in-case mentality that pervaded collecting at MPL. This is one example of the kind of thinking that contributed to the downfall of a great institution that was stuck in the past.
While being able to point to the existence of a comprehensive business collection, or the activities of an activist librarian like Gratia Countryman, is wonderful, it doesn't pay the bills. The librarians at Minneapolis Public Library committed the great sin of many public servants--we thought we knew better. We didn't.
