What Pop!Tech Has to do with MD Libraries

Hi, this was me …

Before attending Pop!Tech

With my thinking cap on, I

would look out

my small, blurry

window into the world of

MD libraries

and what I saw was

this

Thinking Cap

OVER-

DRAMATIZATION

AHEAD

Hard working people, working hard to make this

I work hard for the money, so

hard for it honey…

Library

All natural Maryland library preserves.

I wasn’t just making this up … after rigorous research I found out that lots of people are talking about preserving libraries.

Then, just as I was about to take a big bite out of the library preserves myself…

DLDS approved my grant request for money to cover my attendance at Pop!Tech 2011.

So, what’s Pop!Tech you ask? At first I didn’t know what to tell folks when they asked this so, I bumbled around and said something about brilliant people speaking about their brilliant contributions to the world in about 15 minutes.

Like who?

Like The Who?

No. Not like The Who.

Like photographers…

Like NASA scientists…

Like 13 year old middle school students…

Like Egyptian revolutionaries…

Then, I’m inevitably asked, “so, why are you going?”

Who? Me?

“Is a librarian going to be speaking?” I could speak

at Pop!Tech. I’m brilliant.

“What does any of this have to do with libraries?”

To answer that question, “what does Pop!Tech have to do with libraries,” and to connect the Pop!Tech message of, “a world rebalancing” with the Maryland library

world I was seeing through my window, I’ve chosen to focus on one speaker who, for me, illustrated the incredible possibilities of sitting down the idea of preserving and

choosing instead to adopt a mindset of redefining. This is the message I feel will rejuvenate Maryland libraries right now.

To preserve or not to preserve?

My Arguments Against preserving libraries:

1. Is keeping us in denial of the fact that everything comes to an end.

Remember, we’re balancing here.


2. Is forgetting that some of the most poignant lessons learned come

from harm and mistakes. We need to welcome these lessons, not avoid

them.


3. Is catering to the status quo. It’s flat lining.


4. Is all about control and ownership. Of what? Buildings, services,

people? The “idea” of what a library is and does and should be?


5. Is like embalming. No decay

but no growth either.

Naturally, I changed my mind about library preserves and instead I’ve chosen to focus on the following speaker based on his position in a situation that he could have chosen to preserve – in one form or another –but instead he chose a different path.

Bernard Lietaerhttp://poptech.org/popcasts/bernard_lietaer_money_diversity

“…political democracy without monetary democracy is ineffective.”

Mai

n th

esis


We’ve moved out of the industrial age but we keep using industrial age monetary concepts – the idea of a single currency.

a.k.a. monetary preservation

“”


[complementary currencies]…are available to do very, very, very important things. i.e. meet the challenges of the 21st Century.

“

”i.e. The Swiss Wir

i.e. The C3 in Uruguay

Bernard Lietaer

“Money is an agreement within a community to use

something standardized as

medium of exchange.”

http://poptech.org/popcasts/bernard_lietaer_money_diversity

He just redefined what money is. What if we redefined what libraries are?

Bernard Lietaer

“Because we are only using one type of money, that is the very reason why it’s unstable.”


Unbalanced = unstable.


An example of a very successful complementary currency: The Swiss Wir.

• Created 75 years ago• By 17 small business owners• Has been scientifically linked

to the economic stability of Switzerland.

http://wir.ch

http://wir.ch/

http://wir.ch/


Short video clip of Lietaer describing his revitalization project in Gent, Flanders.

Of course, it involved creating a complementary currency.

WhatIf?

Bernard Lietaer

“Money is an agreement within a community to use something standardized as medium of

exchange.”


Libraries are natural communities. All we need to do is agree to adopt a complementary currency.

Julie Zamostnyhttp://www.westmdlib.info/

Libraries

Maryland

So, I created a complementary currency: the Marylib Ex Libris (or MExL for short)


How can MExLs be earned?

Through the usual volunteering channels like…

Students processing materials …


Like volunteers shelving books…


By donating materials (books, eReaders, CDs, laptops, etc) …


By donating time and expertise to teach workshops …

http://www.westmdlib.info/

Julie Zamostny

What if people earned MExLs by proving that they’re out advocating for their libraries?

I signed th

is.


How can MExLs be spent?

By paying library fines …


Julie Zamostny


By buying extra days of loan time …


Julie Zamostny


By buying extra time on the library computers …


Julie Zamostny


By buying a cup of coffee at the library café …


Julie Zamostny

THIS METER ONLY

ACCEPTS EX

LIBRIS!


By buying premium parking at spaces with specialized meters designed to only accept the MExL …

Why couldn’t this be reality?

Libraries

Maryland

Libraries

Schools

ParksLocal Biz

Museums

What If?


Julie Zamostny

OR

I ask you, which view of Maryland library preserves is tastier to you? The one where we look pretty and can fit nicely onto a shelf but one where we can’t be fully experienced or the one where we’re messy and sweet and sticky and spread all over some pound cake – one where we can be enjoyed by all 5 senses?

And that’s what I learned at Pop!Tech.

http://poptech.org/2011



Education

What Pop!Tech Has to do with MD Libraries