Knowledge for Sale

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Local citizens, meanwhile, have voted to build new urban showcase libraries, structures that local leaders hope will revitalize downtown areas. The spectacular new Seattle Public Library designed by, among others, the firm of renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, is one example. Despite critical raves, the building seems made to awe and befuddle rather than function smoothly as a house of knowledge. Escalators go to the top floor but don't return from there, stairs are for emergency use only, and just three elevators serve 11 stories and a basement parking garage (costing as much as four dollars an hour). A bright and glassy new library in Salt Lake City has a mall-like foyer lined with shops selling coffee, sandwiches, and gifts. In Minneapolis a new central library with a "green roof" is scheduled to open next year, following recent layoffs and reduced service at the branches. A number of other cities have new trophy libraries of their own.

One concern is that, in the name of giving people what they want, the new libraries of the future will be closer in spirit to amusement complexes -- centers offering corporate-sponsored "edutainment" spectacles and tiered services to a paying clientele. In fact, some administrators have already embraced library partnerships with Starbucks, McDonald's, and other companies as "creative" ways to make up public funding shortfalls. This trend should surprise no one. Libraries are increasingly modeled on big business and directed not by librarians but by executives who are apt to have read more management books than literature.

The local effects are wide ranging. Along with a growing corporate presence, patrons might find more copies of the latest hyped technothrillers and fewer scholarly journals (canceled to offset costs). Another budget-balancing tactic is to offer fee-based research. In Minneapolis, the public library's INFORM service can cost as much as $90 an hour. Administrators have begun to outsource every chore from cataloging to book selection. As in the private sector, local autonomy is becoming a thing of the past. With tax revenues dwindling, the economic pressure is real, but eventually a library run like a big-box store will carry big-box inventory on its shelves.

Under the current tyranny of the majority, libraries can't be accused of catering to the few; but they're not for everyone either. Today, libraries are for some. At Kansas City (Missouri) Public Library's new central facility last year, 33 posted "customer behavior expectations" were clearly geared toward keeping homeless people out. ("Personal belongings must . . . not be too large to fit under one library chair.") In Denver a reporter noted that branch libraries in seven low-income communities were open 30 percent fewer hours than libraries serving more affluent areas. Ironically, it isn't just the underclass that gets short-changed when libraries cater so single-mindedly to the middle class. Independent scholars, young dreamers, and tomorrow's world changers have always shared the library with the unwashed and the forgotten, and all may be poorly served by recent changes.

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