So I’ve been summarizing my thoughts on the FOX News videos and noting how good it feels to experience powerful dialogue about the issues facing our public libraries.
A common trope is to frame issues in polar, life-or-death ways and library rhetoric often falls into this trap. Two of the FOX videos do the same thing. For me, the fact that our public libraries aren’t necessities (no one dies when we reduce hours or close them down) makes the issues much more engaging. Our libraries are the embodiment of values and insights and traditions that we choose to create and share with one another. I view our national library dilemma as a nexus for a really important question: what kind of society and country do we want to live in and what heritage do we want to pass along?
My passion for libraries comes not from thinking about how to perpetuate what we have but rather on what we want to invest in, preserve and create together. Stepping through the arguments FOX presented has furthered my thinking and I look forward to sharing what I’ve come up with.
