Needs for new library stack up, from the Rock Hill SC Herald

Wanda, SILS’ resident PR Genius, forwarded me an email about a week ago, that she got forwarded from someone, et cetera, through some circuitous means, ultimately from a reporter from the Herald. The question from the reporter was very very general, & amounted to: how is technology changing public libraries? And my favorite part of his question: what will libraries look like in 10 years? Because, as Yogi Berra supposedly said, it’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.

Anyway, I wrote this reporter back a big long email. A day or so later I got a reply saying that he’d gotten many replies to his question. So I figured that was the end of it; he’d gotten enough material & I’d written that big long email more or less for nothing.

Then Wanda emails me this morning to tell me that the article is out & that I’ve been quoted in it! And the author chose a good quote, too:

“Libraries are becoming community centers, as well as places to study and places with meeting rooms,” says Jeff Pomerantz, a library science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “The function of libraries is changing, and why people go to libraries is changing.”

I took Yvonne’s advice & stuck as much as I could to sound bites in my email.