How Can Libraries Compete with Amazon?

I’m so bored by this question. Let’s talk instead about some things Amazon can’t do:

• Amazon can’t be part of a community.

• Amazon can’t build meaningful, multifaceted relationships with people at a local level.

• Amazon can’t provide communal space.

• Amazon can’t provide boots-on-ground, in-the-trenches, front-line community services.

• Amazon can’t provide anything beyond purely commercial transactions.

• Amazon can’t be assumed to care about the common good.

• Amazon can’t build trust with people.

Libraries do all these things. Libraries do so much more than these things. All without ever advertising to you, without leveraging your needs for commercial gain.

Amazon values monetization. Libraries value people.

Can libraries compete with Amazon? This isn’t a legitimate question. If you think Amazon is competition for libraries, then you fundamentally don’t understand what libraries do.

The truth is this:

Amazon can’t compete with us.