On the eve of Groundhog's Day, our country's greatest celebration of prognostication, I got to thinking about the art, science, and randomness of predicting the future. I am not sure how often Punxatawney Phil is right, as it seems like he nearly always predicts a winter the full length of winter, but there is that annual stirring of interest about what he will predict.
I find the Phil thing is like folks around me that refer to the Farmer's Almanac predictions of weather for the year. It always seems spot on when you are in the moment and someone says well the Farmer's Almanac did predict a lot of snow this year. But do we ever say the opposite, like being amazed that it is such a snowy winter when the FA predicted little snow.
A team of us have been working for several months to analyze the future of libraries in general, and the Kelley in specifics, and while we have gotten a great handle on a lot of useful things, we are still shying away from making predictions. Just a few years ago, when the digital book craze took off, there were constant predictions of the death of print books, libraries, and reading in general. Several years in, digital books sales are sagging, print is in a resurge, and libraries are still here and busy. Like so many formats before - audiobooks, large print to name a few - we have weathered the panic that these new formats spelled the end of print books as we know it, and they have comfortably settled into being a portion of the array of materials we provide. The key has always been to be careful to offer access to books and film in a variety of ways so we can support the widest range of users. Digital books are just another way for our community to access the wide variety of ideas, interpretations, creativity, wisdom, insights offered by authors and directors from all over the world. Broadening our minds, inspiring us to new ways of thinking, and keeping us open to the changing world.
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