ALA Celebrity READ posters

I saw reference to another of the ALA Celebrity READ posters the other day, and have included it below, so you can see it.

via www.americanlibrariesmagazine.orro

It's nice enough and Taylor Swift is apparently a musician, which I didn't know before, so the poster has taught me something. However, that's just about the only thing that it's taught me. I really do wonder at the value of these posters - don't we all know that you can get books to read from a library?

Surely that's not the point. I don't see Apple selling iphones based on the idea that you can use them to make telephone calls. I don't see Ford selling cars using the concept that it will get you from point A to point B, and so on. This isn't a message that needs making, is it? In fact, I'd say that it's actually not helping libraries at all.

Does this poster reference the fact that there are eBooks in libraries? Does it make the point that you can use the Internet? I cannot get the information from this poster that I can find out information from the library to help me get a job/better job. Does it tell me that librarians can help teach me how to do something? As a small business owner, is this informing me that the librarians could help me sell my products into new markets? As a teenage band member, can I deduce that I might be able to use the library resources to record some music and learn how to promote it via social media?

No, no, no, no, no.. (continue until bored.) All that this poster does is repeat the old adage that you can get books from a library and read them. Oh, and a celebrity reads. Well that's just great isn't it. That's really going to set the world alight. That's going to save a whole bunch of libraries, and improve the perception that people have of us.

I'm sorry, but this poster doesn't help. At best it maintains the status quo. At worst it damages us. Let's see posters that really help - that you can use a library to question, to think, to improve, to do so many of the things that we know libraries do - but other people often don't.

Comments

[Catherine]

I didn't know who this 'celebrity' was so it has no impact on me whatsoever. I agree with you about these posters and the post Sarah Houghton made about the 'love your library' campaign (http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/2013/12/thewronglove.html). Wouldn't it be better to have a poster with 'Need a Job? Libraries can help build your skill set' etc.