(Note to readers: The following has been gelling in my brain for quite a while, and it has finally come roaring out with the novel-reading encounter described in the first few sentences. All of this is simply something for us all to be aware of. We are, after all, in a culture that has been commodifying everything since before most of us were born. Just don't be afraid to question that sometimes, is all I'm sayin'.)

The novel was really really good. My nose had been stuck in nonfiction for so long, I'd forgotten what it was to lose myself in a good story like that.

"Oh, I read The Memory-Keeper's Daughter from that Oprah Book Club!" a woman in a sequined shirt under a dark pantsuit said to me chummily, passing me by with her small mop of a dog. "It was verrry good! So, I thought I'd watch the Lifetime movie they made of it, and they reallllly messed the story up! If I hadn't read the book before, I wouldn't have known, but the book is just soooo superior," she finished.

"Yeah, that happens way too often with movies made from good books," I said. She nodded and walked off to wait for her daughter to finish her sports practice.

Oprah's Book Club? I thought. Where the hell did that come from? On a hunch, I took a look at the cover of the novel in my hand and sucked in my breath a little. There it was-that Oprah's Book Club sticker.

God help me, I just now looked up the woman's book club online and realized the whole shebang is in its twelfth year. And some authors have been included more than once in the chosen selections - why can't it be like Brian Lamb's Booknotes or something, where an author can only appear once? Give somebody else a chance, Oprah!

One of the chosen authors who struggled with the implications of that sticker was Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections, an amazing novel and, in my opinion, his best. He did his best to satisfy both the literary audience and the popular (read: TV) audience with his comments and ended up with his book withdrawn from Oprah's club (though one wouldn't know it to look at the site online), which earned him some lit cred and boosted sales of the book anyhow because people wanted to see what all the fuss was about. It is a double-edged sword, however, because it has been said that any author graced with being Oprah's choice has pretty much got it made - but Oprah's reach is such that even rejection by her can put unknowns on the map.

It was then that I began to think about how this applied to my city's current library system overhaul plan, unveiled for all to peruse in the past few weeks. It can't be denied that the public library system here needs to be rebuilt. When most of your city's branches have been severely damaged by flooding, well, I'd say the time is right to rebuild.

Put that rebuilding initiative in a city in which the long arm of tourism has a mighty insidious reach, however, and it isn't enough to provide people who live here with access to all the knowledge they can read, hear, or see, 1-hour-per-day computer sessions, and other library events and courses the city's residents could possibly drink in at their convenience. The library must also cater to city visitors. It must take said visitors to new places mentally and physically, since the visitors will need to travel to a specialized, themed branch to listen to jazz recordings or partake of this city's culinary delights in a literary setting.

In the meantime, will it really become more convenient for the people who are here after the visitors have gone, the people who are, ideally, the folks who will be using the overhauled system the most? Let's examine what some of those problems are:

So why haven't I adopted any of the libraries in New Orleans as a home away from home? Why haven't I even signed up for a card?

I suspect that one reason is the belief I adopted as a young professional with a steady paycheck that it's better to own a book than to borrow one, that it's better to have a library than patronize a library. The head rush I get when I'm walking out of a bookstore with loaded bags is more intense than the joy that comes from borrowing a title. No returns. No time restrictions. No fines.

But my desire to own more and more books is not the only reason I've steered clear of New Orleans' libraries. I probably would have visited at least occasionally if the libraries looked inviting and had convenient hours.

But a bibliophile can drive past the main library on Loyola -- the flagship location -- and not see a single feature that beckons him come. And it looks no more appealing from the inside.
I've met some wonderful people who have worked in or on behalf of the New Orleans public libraries, and my criticism of the environment and conditions they have to deal with is not a criticism of them. It's to say that where they work is unappealing and that they deserve better, as do all the children who could potentially come to the library and fall in love with reading.

Jarvis DeBerry goes further in his column and says the master plan doesn't necessarily need "to aggressively and adamantly depict what New Orleans is about."

I'd be fine with a library system that aggressively and adamantly depicts the importance of reading, that shows that this community holds libraries in high regard and is willing to pay for them.

DeBerry has unfortunately stated another reason why libraries are not held in much high regard these days - the importance he himself puts on possessing a personal library, the high he gets when walking out of a bookstore with new books to peruse. True confession here: I myself am not immune to that high. I have admitted time and again that I am hell in a bookstore - and there's nothing wrong with heading out every so often and supporting one's local booksellers.

This idea that we have to own knowledge, however....hmmmm. What does that lead to? Let's see one possibility:

London, at least, is convinced that the placement of the quasi-totality of collections online is the sole mission proposed for the future. Today, the British Library keenly desires to transform the lead of the past into future gold through a brand-new key position: the marketing director. Aided by a crew of one hundred, his mission is to create a modern brand image and advertising, and thereby accelerate the opening of the collection to the greatest number of the world's users. Facing the future with open arms means radical decisions: While truckloads of books and newspapers are being dematerialized, IBM is getting ready to pocket tens of millions of pounds sterling that could not be any less immaterial.

The architectural modesty of the new British Library already reads as the future, with its comfortable and pleasant work rooms that are well lit from the ceiling and with its armchairs- although unrecognized by home decor magazines - in which patrons can spend hours. Its efficient supervisory duties are performed by human beings, but the national library of each country will be open upon reservation only (on-site staff, as opposed to on-site computer technicians, will be scarce) for those who track the marginal science, the secret of a text deemed insufficiently worthy of world vaporization, and all those - often the same individuals - who, like the blind, demand contact with old books, the grain of the pages, the sui generis aroma, the reality of leafing through them, the biblioteca de papel, we might say ironically.

As can be seen in small business trade the world over, only the specialized institutions will survive and thrive. The intermediary archive that currently satisfies (more than honorably) the needs and tastes of the public at large will vanish, for it, too, will soon be overequipped for electronic communication in the comfort of one's own home. France certainly knows how to make good use of its language; it has rebaptized its municipal libraries [bibliotheques] mediatheques, because words beginning with media or medio reveal from the outset the vocation of what they designate.*

Big box bookstores and public libraries have been snagging ideas and events from each other to get people through the doors for quite a while - author events, book readings for children and adults, bargain book sales of new and used books. There are loads of copies of published works going in the doors of these places - and a large percentage are coming right back out only to be pulped and recycled into even more books, with perhaps one or two copies left behind in an archive someplace. That archive, and whoever keeps the gates of that archive, will then be available for access for a limited time - namely, the opening hours of the institution in which it resides.

Unless it all goes digital - in which case, what would really be the point of a serious overhaul such as the one for the New Orleans Public Library?

Well, there are a lot of things happening in this area these days. Many, many plans have been revealed for this city and we have yet to see little other than demolitions. The stuff on paper looks mighty exciting, but when one is faced with a recession, priorities have to be reassessed and rearranged. Flooded libraries may well be rebuilt, but adding specialized branches may fall by the wayside for a little while longer. After all, one can patronize one of many, many great clubs around here to listen to live music - there's not much need for an exhibition room full of listening stations to present that same music, although I know that, as a resident, I personally would enjoy that - and it really isn't necessary for a library to have to do that. Unless, of course, you have something else to sell - like maybe library chocolate (hmmmm, will it add to my expanding knowledge if I eat some? Around here, it'd probably be library pralines) or jazz recordings.

Which brings me back to what made me suck in my breath when I saw the Oprah sticker on the cover of the novel I was reading.

I've been trying very, very hard to overcome the impulse I have to go into bookstores and buy, buy, buy like there is no tomorrow. For me and my family and friends, there is indeed a tomorrow, and it is also one of the many reasons why there are libraries in the first place - by having any and all past knowledge in one publicly accessible place, it can help us move forward, expand our imaginations, empathize with others through story, and be the change we've been reading about, without having to pay out the nose for it. Treating that as yet another commodity to be bought, sold, and traded cheapens that potential somewhat - and though I don't think one's personal libraries ought to be neglected, I also don't think we need to remake our current libraries completely and totally into a consumptive entity to help sell this city.

Why can't the public library continue to do what it's doing, only better, with better paid and happier employees, great public events, and edifices that present themselves for community gatherings - something that, in our current recovery climate after 8-29, is needed now more than ever? Why do we need to dress it all up with jazz and culinary themes? Have things really become that bad for libraries as a whole?

If so, we might as well stick a branch right on Bourbon Street. One in the French Market. And have a ruined room in a remade branch in the Lower Ninth Ward as a commemorative gesture as to what crumbling national infrastructure can do to our institutions and, indeed, our lives.

Dammit, I just want to read. Why does that have to be so tough to understand?

Later on that night, I finished the novel. I closed the book and, instinctively, my fingernails began to pick at the Oprah sticker on the cover. I rubbed the last traces of the gummy residue from the sticker off the book's surface. The next day, I dropped it in the library bookdrop.

Technically speaking, it's probably a form of defacing a library book, but, in my opinion, the book didn't need Oprah's seal of approval for me to think it was good. I hadn't had it recommended to me by Oprah herself or by a fan of Oprah's show. It was through word of mouth from another avid reader like myself that I'd heard it was worth picking up, and I sought it out at the library.

Will we be eliminating another way of finding commonalities between otherwise perfect strangers if we remake the library into another version of Barnes & Noble, but with Trombone Shorty and duck po' boys on the side?

If we are, it will certainly sound and taste good for a bit. Digesting the change might be a little hard on our systems, though...



* from Books On Fire: The Destruction of Libraries Throughout History, by Lucien X. Polastron.