The library rule rule (from Machines Are the Easy Part)

From Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part. 
Illustrations by Brady Johnson

 58. The number of students in the library media center will always be in inverse proportion to the importance of anyone visiting. 

It never fails. There are a thousand kids in the library third hour. Fourth hour when the superintendent and board members drop by on a facilities inspection, the place is a ghost town. 

There is not one damn thing you can do to keep this from happening.  

There are good things you can do to counteract such mistaken perceptions, however: 

• Keep the library as full of kids as possible as many hours as possible. 
• Make communications and marketing a top priority. 
• Issue invitations to important people to visit during exciting times. 

There are enough things in life that cannot be anticipated or controlled. Work on the things you can.  

59. Life-long impressions of libraries are formed very young. 

I once had a superintendent brag to me that he obtained his college degrees without ever setting foot in a library. (And this was in pre-Internet days.)  

“ I thought there was something special about you,” I tactfully replied.  

There are people who don’t like libraries. My suspicion is that they were frightened by a librarian as children. 

The kids we bark at, ignore, or chase from our libraries today are our teachers, school board members, legislators and referendum voters of tomorrow. 

What comes around, goes around. 

60. The library rule rule.  

Never have more than three rules for your media center. These are mine: 

• Be doing something productive
• Be doing it in a way that allows others to be productive
• Be respectful of other people and their property.

That’s it.

The beauty of this is that nearly every behavior, both of commission and omission, can be judged according to these rules. 

If your library has a list of a dozen or more rules (Don’t eat the library books. Don’t poke others with sharp objects. Don’t sharpen your pencil more than 3 times within 45 minutes. Don’t moon the librarian.), rethink your strategy. 

Teaching kids to examine their own behaviors and apply simple codes of conduct to a variety of circumstances is not a bad thing to do.  

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