Fort Wayne Indiana etc., a new blog in town, sounds off about the Allen County Public Library spending more than $500,000 for new chairs on a one-bid contract. Among the 1,860 Herman Miller-brand chairs are 110 chairs for staff from the Herman Miller Aeron line at a cost of $560.74 each. Not only does a review of those chairs suggest they might be a tad overpriced, but " . . . it would appear that it was purely a decision based upon keeping the aesthetic design of the new $65 MILLION dollar renovation. Gee, I wonder how many taxpayers would have voted against this . . . ?"
Meanwhile, Indiana Barrister writes about the expansion of the Central Library in Indianapolis, which isn't going nearly as well as our project (two years behind schedule, with millions in cost overruns) and thinks it might be wise just to privatize the whole system.
Count me as one who thought the information revolution would threaten the existence of libraries. But, apparently, the current building boom is just the continuation of a trend that started a few years ago. According to the Christian Science Monitor, new library construction amounted to $686 million in 2001, the second-highest dollar total ever spent. Not only wasn't the Internet not killing off library demand, new customers were flocking there to make use of the Web's research capabilities. I wonder if that will last, though. Libraries have always had things we could get elsewhere -- books, then things like CDs and videos -- but offered a depth and variety we could never hope to match in our personal collections. But with the Internet, what they can provide access to, we can have access to, in the comfort of our homes. Unless libraries are going to sharply increase their research-assisting capabilities, to help people sort through the tons of information out there, I don't think the Internet is going to continue to be a big draw.
I've wondered about a lot of recent infrastructure commitments, including our own soon-to-come multimillion-dollar press at a time when the future of the print medium is in doubt, and the recently expanded Grand Wayne Convention Center, just ahead of virtual-reality videoconferencing (note the chairs mentioned, by the way) becoming cheap enough to replace travel for many companies. The institutions that survive will the ones that can adapt, and libraries probably have as much chance as any, especially in smaller towns where they can become de facto community centers. The less we need to leave our homes, the more need we might feel to have places to gather.
