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I'm Curious, George… Yesterday my library director called me into his office and told me I was going to be in charge of a new "space planning"
project for our library. Don't get me wrong, George, I think boomers have a lot of interesting ideas, but sometimes I wonder
about those acid flashbacks. I mean, we're having enough trouble meeting the needs of patrons here on our own planet--and
now we have to start planning for delivering services in outer space? You know how librarians feel about change, and I just
don't think they'll go for the "put-me-in-deep-freeze-for-200-years-and-send-me-to-Pluto-so-I-can-lead-storytime" concept.
Does my director think we'll be able to retrofit our bookmobile with liquid nitrogen rockets? Start a Klingon Language Outreach
Program? Dammit, George, I'm a librarian, not a magician!
George, please let me know if I'm missing something. At times my thinking is a bit monolithic... Earthbound in Evanston Dear EiE, The only acid flashback this aging boomer ever has is remembering the time I ruined my favorite jeans when I tried to remove
the battery from a 1962 Ford Galaxie 500. Painful too.
Nobody beats Stanley Kubrick for monolithic thinking, in my opinion. Way back in the late 60s, we were all fired up about planning for space… travel,
that is. I remember exactly where I was when Apollo 11 touched down on the lunar surface. It doesn't take an acid flashback
to relive that thrilling moment! Many of us thought at the time that space travel would be possible for the average person
by the year 2000. We'd be able to take the family on a holiday to the moon, where, of course, we'd expect to find the Moon City Public Library.
Fortunately for us librarians, those early dreams are on a delayed timeline. Although NASA envisions an “extended human presence across the solar system,” the next manned landing on the moon isn't expected until around 2020.
It will be awhile after that before we build our first library there, so we can leave that kind of space planning to NASA
for now. (But Pluto is closer than you think -the "New Horizons" probe will be launched this month for a nine-year journey to the ninth planet.)
There's plenty to think about when it comes to space planning for libraries on Earth. Because we have a lot less available
real estate here than on the moon, we have to make optimal use of what space we've got. Whatever the scale of your renovation
schemes, this month's focus on Space Planning will direct you to useful tools and resources. And don't be discouraged if you can't afford a whole new building. You might
find inspiration in this Library of the Month story about the low-budget transformation of one small library in rural Kansas.
Of course, it might not hurt to start thinking of the more distant future-2020 will be here sooner than we want to think.
At the very least, you'll need to make room in your library for a space elevator for automated interstellar book return. (I'm convinced that the beloved codex will still be with us.) And that Klingon Language Outreach Program that you seem to think is far-fetched? I hear a lot about libraries having to compete with Google. Well,
there's a Klingon Google, so can the outreach program be far behind?
Astronomically yours, George If you’re curious and have a question for George, send an email to community@webjunction.org . |
Documents
| Klingon Outreach: Libraries and Space (February 2006) |
You don't have to go out of this world to do a little space planning with would-be astronaut George.
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