Are you being killed by Kindness?

The May 2008 issue of American Library features an article called Killed by Kindness by Julia Keller, cultural critic of the Chicago Tribune.

Ms Keller says we should beware of people quoting Jorge Luis Borges saying "I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." In her words, "Paradise is a place to which you aspire, not a place to which you make frequent visits or insist that your tax dollars be directed."

As for the people who express love for libraries in nostalgic terms:

Everybody loves them; in fact, they're loving them to death, especially in our schools. Libraries are routinely discussed in warm and reverent tones. Personal reminiscences with libraries as the centerpiece are earnest and heartfelt, set against a pastel wash of nostalgia. Most people have a favorite story about the library of their youth--the day they discovered, say, A Wrinkle in Time or Codes and Secret Writing--and they adore telling it, after which they sigh and offer a those-were-the-days shrug of bemused resignation. Yet these same people--the ones who rhapsodize about finishing off the entire Nancy Drew or Tom Swift oeuvre over the course of a single enchanted summer--often haven't stepped inside a real, live, functioning library in decades.

Do you feel your library is being loved to death? Do you think that libraries need all the support they can get, whether it is rooted in the present or past? How would you like to see libraries talked about?

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Cited Article:

Title: Killed by KINDNESS.
Authors: Keller, Julia
Source: American Libraries; May2008, Vol. 39 Issue 5, p50-51, 2p
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