The Chronicle: Colloquy: Responses

An insight from Aristotle and Marketing is relevant: determine the point and the path is usually marked out. Companies that lose market share will find that what they thought was their purpose was really not. Not lipstick, but an image of beauty; not a car, but freedom and the heartbeat of America; and so on. Is it books? The free exchange of ideas and opinion? Resources to complete one's dissertation on time? And then the point of the coffee bar: perhaps -- strongly -- the point is to serve the Moment rather than Chronos, the schedule. If the library is a servant of merely competing power struggles, rather than the servant of the truth, no wonder people will stay away in droves. Libraries that don't believe anything will be as attractive as churches that don't believe anything. Neither entertainment nor ideology will solve the problems -- they will only distract. But both entertainment and coherent thinking will support clearly articulated goals, where the goals of all parties nicely coincide. And coffee bars can support the goals of libraries, as do concert series. But not replace them.

: -- Bruce C. Meyer, Assistant Professor, Philosophy, Salem State College (posted 11/12, 10:00 a.m., U.S. Eastern time)

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