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MOVING ON
By JEFF ZASLOW
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Of the Places You'll Go,
Is the Library Still One of Them?
March 15, 2007; Page D1
In 1998, a new library was built near my home in suburban Detroit. To raise funds, the library sold bricks for the entrance walkway for $100 each, and my wife and I bought one.
![[Move On]](/public/resources/images/PJ-AJ853_pjMOVE_20070314175525.jpg)
Our inscription on the brick was a Dr. Seuss homage -- and a message to our daughters, then ages 9, 7 and 3: "Jordan, Alex and Eden, too/The places you'll go start here for you."
We hoped our girls would see the library as an oasis where they'd learn to understand themselves and the world. But truth is, like many computer-obsessed kids, my daughters don't visit the library as often as we had hoped. They usually turn to Google if they want to research something.
For parents and grandparents, it's hard to accept that young people today often feel little connection to the local library. We recall the libraries of our childhoods as magical places; getting our first library card was a rite of passage. It saddens us that younger generations seem more eager to buy books than borrow them, or that they consider libraries just another tool for acquiring information.
"The library is more removed from their lives," says Sabra Steinsiek, a retired librarian in Albuquerque, N.M. "It's a last-ditch place to go if they need to find something out."
Sure, there are still library-loving children, but books aren't necessarily the draw. Many gravitate to the rows of computer terminals. And libraries are offering more children's materials and programs than ever, with attendance growing at events such as story hours, ice-cream socials and movie nights. Suburban kids, especially, often use libraries more for DVDs, story hours and computers, because their parents buy them books, according to a 2005 study by the Association for Library Service to Children.
Recognizing that today's kids like to "own stuff," Stephanie Bange, a librarian in Dayton, Ohio, says she tells kids to "come to the library and try out a book. If you like the fit, then go to the bookstore and buy it."
Many kids, of course, skip the library and head right for the store. Sales of hardcover juvenile books rose 60% from 2002 to 2005, to $3.6 billion. Yes, that's an encouraging sign that kids still value books. But today, they own books in part because of society's "insatiability" for material things, says Mel Levine, a pediatrics professor at the University of North Carolina Medical School.
Meanwhile, with most teens turning first and foremost to the Internet for schoolwork, students are arriving in college unable to navigate libraries. At Minnesota State University Moorhead, collection-management librarian Larry Schwartz finds himself explaining to students that books are shelved by call numbers. "There's concern in Libraryland about how we should serve these people who grew up with computers," he says.
Matthew Kessler, a student I know at Western Michigan University, proudly avoids the school library. Given all the books and magazines it houses, "that place is a firetrap. I don't go in there," he says, only half-jokingly.
Young people argue that some of their elders rely too heavily on libraries. Elly Gilchrist, 22, works at the library in Birmingham, Mich., and she fields questions from older folks that they could answer online in seconds. "We're like their Google," she says.
It's true that older Internet-phobes are missing out on an incredible tool. But many tech-savvy kids never experience the library as a place for serendipitous discovery. "The library is about delayed gratification," says Dr. Levine. "It's about browsing through shelves of biographies. 'Do I want Jackie Robinson? Franklin Roosevelt? What will I do when I grow up?' The library slows you down and makes you think."
Today [3/15], in West Bloomfield, Mich., 50 first-graders from Lone Pine Elementary are scheduled to visit the library and get their first library cards. I interviewed some of the students last week about the books, videos and computer games they hoped to find at the library.
One precocious first-grader, Elias Khoury, warned his classmates: "The computer is mostly mind-numbing. If you waste time on the computer, you won't find any good books." I had to smile. Give that kid a library card, I thought, and he'll go places.
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