Libraries on the "Make"

Reacting to the “crisis of relevancy,” Biblioposers have gone to extreme lengths to maintain their continued employment. Libraries, once revered as the repository of printed human knowledge, have abandoned this duty as they grasp at any passing fad to attract supporters. An excellent example is the rise of the “makerspace” movement among libraries. Stocked with transistors and motherboards, these little electronic co-ops are just the sort of thing you would expect to see at a YMCA, cub scout headquarters or a senior center, but it stretches the limits of credulity to see them as an appropriate function of a library. What does hot-wiring a television remote control have to do with books, anyway?

Perhaps a better question to ask our angst-ridden cousins of the library world is, “Why stop there?” If stocking 3D printers with plastic goo for patrons to make Disney action figures is a proper role for libraries, how about a cupcake bakery, complete with flower, sugar, and colorful sprinkles? Then your growing cadre of illiterate users can work on upping the diabetes statistics for the nation. Perhaps an auto repair bay might be in order. I know its getting as hard to find an American who can work on his own car as it is to find one who reads, but such a service might help taxpayers look more kindly on the library. Hand loom weaving studios might be a great addition too, although the visual reminder of the first trade made obsolete in the Industrial Revolution might make Biblioposers uncomfortable as they face extinction in the "Information Age."

But really, libraries, as long as you are not using those books, why not send them over to the archives where they can be taken care of? After all, archivists have not added a Ronald McDonald playhouse to their operations and therefore may be able to find the room to store the printed legacy of the human race. Somebody’s got to do it, and you Information Scientists apparently don’t want to.