For the first time ever in my life, I was ahead of a cultural trend.
You know how some people are early adopters? Those who are super early to things are called beta testers. Traditionally I have been an omega adopter. I find out about a trend or new music or slang a year or two AFTER it jumps the shark.
I am happy to announce that for the first time – and quite possibly for the last – I have been oh-so-slightly-ahead of a cultural phenomena.
Namely, in being a rabidly assertive advocate for libraries.
The linked article, written by Linda Holmes, lists the following points (and a few more) explaining why supporting libraries is the next “big pop-culture wave”:
1. “Libraries get in fights. Everybody likes a scrapper, and between the funding battles they’re often found fighting and the body-checking involved in their periodic struggles over sharing information, there’s a certain … pleasantly plucky quality to the current perception of libraries and librarians.”
2. “Librarians know stuff. You know how the words “geek” and “nerd” have gone from actual insults to words used to lovingly describe enthusiasts? Well, if we haven’t gotten past venerating people who don’t know anything, we’ve certainly reduced, I’d argue, the degree to which we stigmatize people for knowing a lot. “
3. “Libraries are green and local…. You can pretty easily position a library as environmentally friendly (your accumulation of books and magazines you are not reading is fewer trees for the rest of us, you know), not to mention economical (obvious) and part of your local culture.”
4. “Libraries will give you things for free. Hi, have you noticed how much hardcover books cost? Not a Netflix person? They will hand you things for free. That’s not an especially hard concept to sell.”
5. “There seems to be a preposterous level of goodwill. Quite honestly, I feel like you can go on YouTube and act like a complete goof (in the best way), and if it’s for libraries, people have that same rush of warmth that they used to get about people who had sextuplets, before … well, you know. Before.”
So thank you, Linda Holmes, for defining this trend and putting all of us book nerds on the map. Love your library? MAKE SOME NOISE!!!
(What does any of this have to do with a picture of a pretty fern? Nothing. I shot the pic at camp recently and love it. Maybe ferns will be the Next Hot Thing, after libraries.)