Public Libraries and Library Boards:

Where are the Librarians on Public Library Boards?

I have been employed at a fairly large public library for more than ten years. For the past three of those years I have worked as a librarian in the Adult Services and Reference Department. While I plan to pursue hard research in this area, actual experience has shown me that this library’s board as well as a number of public library boards in the surrounding area and beyond, remain comprised of prominent members of the community, none of whom are librarians. Yet, the Library Director must address the Board in nearly all aspects of governing the library. I am honestly perplexed and taken aback at the thought that individuals who are non-librarians play such a large part in determining the direction a public library will take in meeting the needs for items and services of that community’s demographic. Who better than librarians who are charged with knowing the realities of a community’s demographics, and in turn that community’s needs and desires from their public libraries, than librarians themselves? In matters ranging from drafting a feasible budget which will serve as the understructure in requesting referenda, through the selection of items which will comprise the collection, though a continuously open line of communication between patrons and librarians, to the most appropriate design of the library building itself, again, who better to serve in this capacity than librarians who will address these matters from a professional’s realistic and workable perspective? For these are the matters which will form the substance that will shape the library into the type of entity that best serves the needs of the community at this point in history and beyond.

With all due respect to those library boards which are comprised of individuals who strive to best meet the library needs of their respective communities, could it be that the matter of having at least one-third of a six panel library board for example, consisting of librarians, is an idea that needs to be thoroughly investigated and ultimately implemented as a long overdue standard in public librarianship in the twenty-first century?

(rsav72 – May 23, 2011)