Phew.
The Philadelphia Library system is staying open. Here is the announcement from the Free Library.
Here is also an interesting post by Jessamyn about it. I think she makes an interesting point about believing in our elected officials. But....that's fine line. What is a girl to do? One minute we need to rally, engage, communicate, and be a part of the change. And then there are times when we should sit back and assume all will be well. I get the gist of what she is saying but it still doesn't sit well with me.
Why?
Because every problem is an opportunity. And we missed one.
What really bothers me about the lack of action and organizing is that we missed an opportunity. Librarians could have used this as a moment to engage and organize around addressing legislatures, speaking out for our communities, and demand more. More support for libraries. More funding. More commitment so that something like this isn't even a question. Then we wouldn't have to have PR stunts like Philly pulled.
But we didn't. We just let it go because really, who is really going to close a library?
What about you? Did you follow this story? Did you engage others? Why? Why not? Is this an opportunity lost or just another library saved?
2 comments:
I did follow the story, but I didn't do anything about it. Why not? I'm not a resident of that district. The officials wouldn't listen to someone who doesn't reside in their district.
I suppose I did do a bit of "hey, look at this terrible story" link posting. Maybe that alerted someone in Philly.
Amanda.
You make a good point about what is truly effective. Perhaps your phone call doesn't matter to those politicians. But as you said, alerting other people to it, to how it will effect them or others around them, is a powerful act. And sometimes we have no idea how powerful.
Thanks for the comment!
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