I went to the Sulzer Library today to check out their once awesome videotape collection which features VHS movies not released on DVD. This is the place where I once found the movie Diary of a Mad Housewife which is nearly impossible to find.
Imagine my horror when I found all of four sets of shelves purporting to hold their entire collection of videos from A to Z! WTF??? says I. They have totally gutted their video collection for audio books?! AUDIO BOOKS?!
I drove home, cursing all the way, proclaiming the gutting of that collection a crime against humanity, and looked up Sulzer Library on the computer to see if I could find out what the fuck happened and I came upon an article in the Reader that said that some head honcho there said that the collection was to be transfered to the second floor. Here’s the article I read.
Note the article expresses doubts about the precious tapes. It goes on about the furniture too, but I don’t care about that.
I didn’t check the second floor of the building while I was there. Does anyone know if that’s what was done? If I go back, and it’s not there, I may start screaming obscenities which is definitely frowned upon in most libraries.
A library’s primary purpose is not to preserve material, but make material that the public wants readily available. A library is not an archive institution.
It was a shock to me to find this out, too, but it’s true.
I refuse to believe that I’m the only one who wants this material readily available.
Also from the article:
But if it doesn’t make much of a difference to the CPL brass whether magazines—or tapes, for that matter—are downtown or at Sulzer, it certainly does to the people in the community who use Sulzer. Were they asked if they wanted more computers and fewer magazines? No, the public wasn’t consulted. Were they asked how they feel about the VHS collection? No, again.
You don’t know what the public wants if you don’t freakin’ ask the public.
Last time I was at Sulzer (about a month ago) I didn’t notice any movies upstairs. I’ve only noticed the movies downstairs. Then again, I wasn’t really looking.
eta: Reading through that article, I don’t think that move has happened yet.
Personally, I sympathize. But they do know what the public wants by what’s being checked out and requested. There really may be relatively few people like you.