Trees and forests: are we ready to reinsert ourselves in the entertainment industry?

Citation

Boese, K.C. (2006), "Trees and forests: are we ready to reinsert ourselves in the entertainment industry?", The Bottom Line, Vol. 19 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2006.17019caa.001

Trees and forests: are we ready to reinsert ourselves in the entertainment industry?

Seen a good cup of joe lately?

Sometimes, in order to have a clearer picture of what you are trying to do, you need to put it in a broader context. There are people that see trees, and there are people that see forests. What we all need to be, however, is people that see both.

There are times when, in order successfully to run a library and serve our users, we need to either be able to see the broader issues as well as the individual parts, or we need to be savvy enough to surround ourselves with colleagues or resources that will help us be able to do both.

One way I try to broaden my view of what needs to be done in my library is by listening to news radio and reading topics related to issues we deal with in libraries, but from non-library sources. For example, one morning I was listening to NPR and heard an item about Starbucks partnering with the movie industry. Since libraries should always be looking at new ways to partner with previously untapped industries, my ears perked up and I listened to see if there was anything useful.

The film Starbucks has decided to put its name behind is a low-budget production called Akeelah and the Bee, a movie about an 11-year-old African-American girl from the inner city who has a gift for words and an ambition to reach the national spelling bee (NPR, 2006). One of the reasons Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment, gives for exploring this option is that company surveys show that customers want movie recommendations, and by supporting a film like Akeelah, the company is saying that this is a compelling story that you and your family could enjoy.

Granted, Starbucks is providing financial support for the low-budget film, and libraries are hardly in a position to support entertainment when we are struggling to support ourselves. However, it seems to me that this might be an opportunity for libraries to approach companies like Starbucks and insert ourselves into the marking process. With people like Nancy Pearl and Oprah promoting books worth reading on radio and television, and companies like Starbucks suggesting music, and now movies, it sounds like there is enough in common where we could all be working together for the benefit of all.

Starbucks, itself, while moving slowly, admits that its foray into the movie business is not where it will stop. It currently plans to enter the book business later this year also. By opening a dialogue with companies exploring these connections, even if all we do is find a way to advertise our services, we put ourselves in a better financial position because we are more visible. It will be interesting to see where this leads.

Speaking of trees

Another task I was recently asked to look into was the collection development policy for my library. Having recently changed positions, I was not immediately aware that the request to look at the policy was actually a request to write a policy. It seems that no one had ever even considered that such a policy was important. Perhaps the biggest challenge I faced was not what our library should collection, but how long items should be retained.

There was no official withdrawal policy, and it seemed like everyone I talked to wanted direction in this area. While I am still figuring this out, some things were obvious. Because there had not been direction in the past, non-current directories could be found in many of the sites. In polling staff, it was easy to determine that only current directories needed to be retained, and the old editions could be discarded, freeing up shelf space.

Other areas were a little more tricky, but here again, listening to the news helped me out. One area that we retain a lot of history in is tax codes, and depending on the practice, the relevancy of older issues seems to be on a sliding scale. While it became clear that there needed to be legacy collections in this area, what was not clear at first was if these just needed to be retained in a central location, or dispersed to the many offices, which then demands multiple copies.

One morning, again while driving to work, I heard a brief notice that due to the forestry industries classification as agriculture, it was able to take advantage of a law written for other agricultural industries, and could defer filing taxes for up to ten years. While the reality is a little more complicated than this, it raised my awareness of the importance of the older codes and showed me that we could not pull them from the offices and house them centrally.

So, if I have learned anything from experiences like these, it is to listen. While many days I would like to leave work and turn my brain off, by doing so I would miss the opportunity to understand better what libraries in general, and mine in particular, not only can be doing, but should be doing. By seeing how libraries could be functioning in the future, you can start to put policies in place so that you are ready to embrace these changes, and do so at your choosing.

Kent C. BoeseGreenberg Traurig, Washington, DC, USA