The local library is one of the most important places for people to gather and find the books they are looking for. Lately the library has come under attack, whether from the transfer of information sources to the Internet or a down economy drying up funds in the budget. In this article from the Oregonian, there is one small town that has found a corporate sponsor. Banks, OR is a tiny former logging town just trying to survive and obviously, Barnes and Noble have the resources to help out. Buy a book, mention you support the library and bam! the library gets a small portion of the book sale. Corporate sponsorship has hit a new high, or some might say a new low, since the days of pro teams and the Olympics being sponsored.
Is it a good idea though? In my opinion yes. I have always been a proponent of the library as the center for post-education learning. Andrew Carnegie started many public libraries across the country and it seems only fitting that in some instances a corporation can step in and help out a little to improve the community in which it resides. Sadly, too many cities and towns, and not a few states, across the country are sorely pressed to meet their fiscal duties and oft times the public library is the easiest target to get the funding axe. By teaming up with a corporation, those same public libraries can get at least some of their funding replaced; maybe even enough to buy much needed computers for job seekers. What a corporate sponsored public library would look like is an unknown, but what is known is that corporations are desperately trying to improve their public image in the face of the current economic meltdown and the good publicity of helping the local library could go a long way.
Obviously there is the potential for the library to be contracted into a bad deal, but sometimes you have to risk the bad contract if you want to save an American institution like the public library from disappearing forever. A lot of small communities out there are in a similar situation to Banks and some may have to close their library as a result. Would it be worth the risk to have an entity like Barnes and Noble come to the rescue of the library? Again, my answer is yes.
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Good point, Ian! I don't see why not. Almost every major sports team has a corporate name on their stadium. Heck, we pay to wear Tommy Hilfiger's name splashed on our chests! I think the days of feeling such actions are a sellout are long gone. If the corporations are willing to put out, why not? Since the dawn of time, this has been going on. Churches used to rent out their pews to their members. You could buy a wall plaque with your name on it, engraved for all eternity on the walls of a church. Everyone wants name recognition and for centuries it has been an acceptable form of creating revenue. Why should libraries be so prudish?
This proposal is a win-win for everyone. Let the corporations buy goodwill in communities, they have been doing it for years by sponsoring youth sports teams. I say the library is such a valuable resource that it needs to remain alive, even at such a cost. Why not go a step further, and have the corporation print t-shirts that have their logo and the libraries logo, and they can pass them out free or as prizes for reading contests? Mugs, pens, bookmarks with the corporate logo and the libraries info. Why not? I think this can go on and on. Our public libraries are worth saving, hang the source of the costs.
I mean, obviously you need not to get into bed with the devil and give over control to the corporations, but why not let them pay for some books? I think we ought to encourage more donations of any type. Let's have used book sales and encourage the members of our community to clean off their shelves a little and donate their books to the library. The library can sort through the donated books and keep for themselves any they want, and sell the rest and use them to purchase new titles and materials. I'd far rather do this than pay high fines! I think the librarian needs to get even more creative and start seeking out alternative sources of funding, instead of hiding in the stacks and moaning about the wells going dry. Go out into the community and drum up financial contributions for some sort, any sort, of activity through the library. The library needs to get louder and more visible, showing off what it has to offer to the world. If corporations want to help themselves by helping the library, I'm all for it!
Hey! Barnes & Noble, my e-mail address is . . . . .
What an interesting idea! It's so progressive and such a good idea. Like Jackie said, corporations have been sponsoring soft ball teams for years, why not sponsor one of the most vital parts of a community? I don't see it as a sellout, just a way to evolve and survive. It would be much worse for a library to not have enough funding than to ask for help from corporations around the community.
Barnes & Noble is also a fantastic choice. I think people that go into bookstores are more likely to donate to help library funding than others. If they are willing to pay for a book, hopefully they would be able to speak up and say they wanted some of the proceeds to go towards the library.
Right now, almost every library across the country is dealing with funding cuts, and this is a fantastic way to keep libraries functioning.
I'm feeling really conflicted about this one. On the one hand, yes, it is a nice gesture of the Barnes and Noble store to support the library - and the library is likely to cater to a different target market than Barnes & Noble. On the other hand, I can't help but notice the irony that people are smilingly paying for books to which they are entitled for free. To some extent they are paying for the experience of a bookstore, vs a library. It's complicated, but on the whole, libraries and bookstores have co-existed for a long time and I can't really blame the library for accepting donations.
If it's a question of cutting programs and materials budgets or accepting corporate sponsorships and donations, then I think libraries have no option but to accept the money. In today's economic climate, libraries cannot afford to walk away from "free" money.
My only concern is the level of sponsorship involved. Sure, donating a percentage of sales is an excellent PR boost (and tax write-off, I'm sure) for the sponsor and a great situation for the library. However, what happens when a sponsor wants to tie programming or materials to the money? For example, I'll give you $1 million dollars for expansion, if you let us put our Starbucks in the library. Or, we'll give you 5% of sales, if you agree to buy books from us next year. I'm sure there are better examples, but hopefully you get the idea.
Libraries are under-appreciated and rarely respected, as is demonstrated by quick budget cuts in any downturn. While it would be nice to not have to turn to corporate sponsorship in any form, as the song goes, "Ain't too proud to beg..."
After reading the article from the Oregonian I have a better understanding of what the library is doing. From reading the posts I was under the impression that a major sponosorship deal was being made like sports arenas and their naming rights but this is merely a fundraiser.
I do these types of fundraisers all the time with my cheerleaders. In fact last year the high school library had a HHS night at Davis Kidd Booksellers during the holidays and the cheerleaders wrapped gifts. As in the article a portion of the proceeds made during the alloted time went back to the high school.
This is nowhere near the same thing as a HUGE sponsorship deal where your local library sells the naming rights of the building and it goes from being Library X to the Pepsi Library.
I see absolutely no harm in the library using creative ways to fundraise. However as Lynn pointed out there would be more to consider with sponsorship deals that contracted certain library changes.
My concerns are much the same as Lynn’s. Once a corporation gets involved, they then have the advantage of tying certain stipulations to their funding. I worry that it can become less about the betterment of the library and more a corporation making itself visible in a library environment. If you look at any sports team, from professional to little league, they are walking advertisements. While it may seem better to have an open library that is a slave to its sponsors than a closed library, I think it can be detrimental to the service provided if corporations have a hand in day-to-day operations. Too, what happens when sponsorship money dries up? If libraries grow dependent sponsorship money, but existing sponsors decide to sever ties with the library and the library cannot find new sponsorship deals, they end up finding themselves out of financing options and have to close anyway.
Goodness no! I do not need another "Comerica Park" on my hands. That is what happens when corporate America takes over, instead of Tiger Stadium it it named Comerica Park. The same for the Sears Tower. First, the name change then what else happens? They throw caution to the wind and take more buyouts from publishing companies that will sell exclusively to them and be their only seller. Awful. The big buck needs to be made and the library is not the place to do it. It wouldn't be the Dewey decimal system anymore it would be Joe Schmoe decimal system and would be named after the highest bidder. The library is not and does not cater to the highest bidder. It is the one place where people are equal and have access to all the same materials. it should stay that way.
In answer to the question if libraries need corporate help- I would prefer not. I think it's OK to have fundraising ventures like the article outlines, but not long term commitments. In the case that libraries need to boost their presence and funding options, other options should be explored (and they are!). For example at the main undergrad. library at my alma mater UW-Madison they opened a huge cafe/cafeteria on the first floor that was open early in the morning until late at night; food was allowed in different areas in the library itself; *comfortable* and noise-friendly study areas were created and free coffee was offered during finals. (I'm sure this has been curtailed due to the budget, though.) A couple people just mentioned library bars in the posts, why not make cafes a part of libraries? Why not borrow some of the corporate ideas without the corporation part? These big businesses started from scratch, so can libraries.
I am not normally supportive of the big corporations getting so involved, and I am not a fan of the new “Willis Tower”. After reading the article, I do not think that Barnes and Noble would be getting involved with the library to the extent that they would be controlling operations. Ian said this is a very small town, and I honestly think that Barnes and Noble would do this just to spur their own sales. I am sure the amount donated to the library was very small and that Barnes and Noble is making out pretty well in the whole situation. In this case, I definitely think that the library benefits from the fundraiser. It is great that the community is willing to rally together to fight for their library and help with donations so that people who cannot pay to buy books at Barnes and Noble have the opportunity to access the information they need.
Being one of the later people to comment on this article, I think it's been really interesting to see the comments already posted shift from "Yea! Do it!" to "NOOOO! Don't!" as the comments go on. Everyone raises a lot of good points, but I feel pretty strongly that only way any non-profit can do anything anymore is with the help of corporate sponsorship. The ALA has publishers sponsor things all the time--from events at conferences to donated funds for grants and scholarships; publishers are always willing to throw in a couple grand to have their name toted somewhere. I can’t imagine any of us would not accept a scholarship sponsored by a publisher based on principle that this corporate sponsorship could be diluting the library world.
Although I will also agree that having too many cooks in the kitchen is never a good thing… but when all is said and done, the meals got to get made, doesn’t it? Bring on the “free” money!
Should libraries and corporations get in bed with one another? Probably not. Should they get into bed with one another when they're marketing the same goods? Definitely not!
That said, Barnes and Noble DOES do a lot of good work. In the past, my children's schools have dumped Scholastic Book Fairs in favor of having "X School Day" at the local Barnes and Noble. If the school's name is mentioned, a percentage of the purchase is donated to it, whether it be on cafe purchases or books or other media. B&N allows the school children's art work to be displayed throughout the store, the children often put together some sort of skit in the kids' area of the store....all around, it's good PR for the school. I see nothing wrong with a library teaming up with B&N to do this. After all, there is no cost to them to do so. However, I think this is where corporate "sponsorship" should end. (Though I don't necessarily even see this is as corporate sponsorship; it's really no different from the used book sales that many libraries have that are ongoing or several major events a year.)
While I think it's fine for libraries to reap the benefits of such fundraisers (free books and money, though to be honest, they really don't get A LOT of money from book fairs), a line must be drawn. Libraries shouldn't be taking large donations from bookstores, and if they're going to accept donations of books, they need to treat those books the same as they do the donations made by other individuals every day. I think crossing that line could be a very slippery slope indeed.
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