Tough times present unprecedented opportunities

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….” Yes, it’s a tired cliché, but when it comes to today’s libraries—both school and public—it’s like that ABBA song I hear on the way to work. I just can’t get it out of my head. You certainly don’t need me to explain what’s lousy—and scary—about the world nowadays. Just click on any news organization’s Web site. For librarians, the key question is how much is the economic recession going to affect their collections and services? What are they going to have to jettison—and what should they struggle to save? Yet, there’s much that’s good about these times. For one thing, libraries have been getting better press in the last six months than I’ve seen in decades. Sometimes the reports just focus on how busy libraries are—but often they dig into the wealth of content libraries offer. Most miraculous of all, the New York Times, on February 15, published a portrait of school librarian Stephanie Rosalia, and they actually got it right, complete with a video that shows Rosalia guiding her students “through the digital ocean of information that confronts them on a daily basis.” It’s this ocean—of digital and print, of audiobooks and graphic novels—that makes this such a wonderful time for librarians. At the SLJ Leadership Summit last fall, librarians and publishers, authors and vendors, came together to discuss how collections are morphing, how print and online are interacting, and how to make sense out of this vast sea change. One thing became clear: librarians have the opportunity to engage readers and learners in ways that we never had before. As we go to press, President Obama has just signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The American Library Association, which lobbied hard to ensure that libraries were included in the stimulus package, has created a Web page with information about funding opportunities for school and public libraries. Let’s not let this opportunity to create a generation of young readers slip through our fingers. Below are the latest book prices, which we publish every March to help our readers plan their budgets. Our data now comes from Albert Greco, a professor at Fordham University’s Business School and an expert on the book industry. His 2009 figures are based on the supposition that the recession will start to subside in the third quarter of 2009. Here’s hoping the professor is right.