The Answer is the Library

Jason Kramer nails it!

The Downside of Being Universally Liked | Advocate’s Corner (posted by Library Journal on May 15, 2013)

Some excerpts:

In the highly competitive and aggressive world of politics, no enemies usually means no allies. In my experience elected officials (and staff) have nice feelings about libraries, not strong feelings. As a result libraries, politically, suffer from benign neglect. The warriors don’t go where there is no war. …

The library is not a thing at all. The library is tool. Therein lay the solution. … A hammer is a tool, and no one has a strong feeling about hammers. There is no pro-hammer lobby or an anti-hammer coalition. Yet we need hammers. … It is the same with libraries. [L]ibraries are the information infrastructure of the modern world. …

This approach, of course, does not guarantee success every time. What it does is ensure that libraries are in the conversation. After a while, the decision makers start to think about libraries as an answer on their own. Each successive time the approach is easier, and the probability for victory increases. …

Whatever the question is, the answer is the library.

The library can always find a place and make other people’s answers work even better.

The answer is always the library.