Not A Blog™

I read an article the other day about librarians becoming marketers. The gist of the story was that not only are librarians no longer called librarians—receiving instead titles such as “media managers”—but they are also doing less librarian work. Specifically, their focus has shifted from maintaining the library to trying to sell kids on books. Public libraries, the article also said, are beginning a trend where they discard books which haven’t been checked out for two years and replace them with more popular books. I found this interesting for two reasons.

Firstly, a few years ago I wrote an article about high school English class. I decided not to bring it back as a classic for a number of reasons, but the main idea behind it was that English class itself was killing interest in reading. It was mostly a joke; I don’t really think that English classes in particular are turning kids off to reading. However, they did turn me off to reading—almost completely. My interest in reading today can be traced back to one person—one conversation, actually. If it weren’t for Graham letting me borrow a book that he promised I wouldn’t find boring (9th grade pre-chemistry; 1st or 2nd period, if I recall), I probably still wouldn’t be reading today.

My suggestion, then, was that most English classes should be dumbed down so as to not completely turn adolescents off to written language entirely. Turns out libraries have started to do this. Relevant.

There is also a second reason I find librarians becoming salespeople interesting. I can draw a parallel here between libraries marketing books, and religions marketing God. I was driving the other day and saw a billboard advertising Islam. It was strange to me, only because I’ve never seen Islam actually marketed. Christianity, certainly. Advertisements for Jesus—professional and home-grown—dot the byways of Lancaster County like dandelions dot lawns, and so it becomes that one takes them for granted. When you think about it, there’s really no reason that Islam should not be advertised in the same manner, it’s just not something that’s commonly seen.

One thing to note, however, about this billboard for Islam was that it wasn’t for any particular church, but just the Islamic faith in general. It had some generic feel-good words like “sincerity” and “compassion”, words that, admittedly, I would not use to describe Islam if asked to free-associate. Which was probably the point of the billboard; it was a form of damage control.

Aside from numbers, this differs from some billboards for Christianity, in particular ones that advertise a particular church. A church is a business, of course, and businesses need to make money. They do this through advertisement. But also there are many advertisements for Christianity which extoll the virtues of either a denomination, or just figures, usually Jesus. The Church of the Ladder Day Saints advertises its denomination, while the Gideons “advertise”, in their unassuming way, salvation through Christ.

The point is that many churches, denominations, and religious people of various faiths feel, in this day, that they need to not only make church more relevant to the unsaved, but actually get the word out, as if this is a product of which people are unaware. The most interesting thing in this comparison, however, is this. Both libraries and churches have found that the general population has decided that the product being proffered is not for them.

I’ve written in the past (not for the Not A Blog™), that if Christianity, or Islam, or any faith for that matter—if what they offered was the truth, they should feel no need to advertise it to anyone. If they hold the ultimate Truth with a capital T, anyone who seeks it will find it. Others may seek it and be deceived, but this can hardly be a permanent state if they are indeed seeking the truth. Even in deception, they would not find what they seek. Anyone who does not seek it would not be attracted anyway, regardless of how shiny your logo is, or how pleasing your gradients. If you hold a monopoly on truth, that should be enough. You never see advertisements for Rolls Royce automobiles. You don’t need to. Everyone knows.

Libraries likewise, assuming them to be important, should have no need to advertise. Yet now they are—certainly more than they have in years past—and they find more students saying, “no thanks”.

I would give the same advice to libraries as I give to religion: if what you have is relevant and as great as you say it is, you’ve got a Rolls Royce. Librarians, first of all, shouldn’t be the ones trying to convince others how great books are because, frankly, they’re not the right people for the job. But even disregarding this, libraries should not have to advertise because if someone is seeking what books offer, if they are ready to start reading, they’ll go to libraries and they’ll use the services regardless of the level of advertisement these libraries might be doing.

If people are still not attracted to the product—well, then both religion and libraries have the same problem. Namely, the problem is that maybe the product isn’t as relevant as librarians/clergy think. The legitimate competitors to libraries are easy: the internet and bookstores. Why does anyone need to slog through the card catalogue when we have Google? Books are an important resource, but just because people aren’t going to libraries doesn’t mean they’re not reading books. They could be ordering permanent copies online, downloading PDFs, or just citing websites. All the advertising in the world won’t stem this tide because the product that libraries offer isn’t quite as relevant to the internet-age consumer.

Religion is not as clear cut; many people do believe we still need God even if we think we don’t. However, one can feel the zeitgeist shifting toward atheism. In the next few years I think we’re going to see an “atheism fad”, much in the same way we saw a “gay fad” in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. But even if we don’t, the fact remains that some people are leaving religion entirely. All the advertising in the world won’t stem this tide, either, because the product that religion offers does not appear, for whatever reason, as relevant to the consumer.

I suspect that the world would continue even if we didn’t have libraries or religion. Call it a hunch. That does not mean these institutions will ever become irrelevant for all people; I don’t think they will. But both religions and libraries offer something which, while important to the people within these institutions, is not for everyone. There is no one thing that is for everyone—Rolls Royces included—but if you’ve got something important, indispensable, and True, it speaks for itself.

-Ted