It seems like everything gets graded these days. Our kids, their schools, teachers, electronic equipment and even our libraries get graded by someone, are we becoming a society that only places value on good grades and forgets the less tangible values (worth pondering). While I am not sure that I like this new mindset of having to grade everything, it does offer individuals and institutions benchmarks to evaluate there performance and hopefully improve their services.

Recently Wisconsin’s Legislative Audit Bureau released a report card on the libraries in Wisconsin (full report here: http://www.lacrossetribune.com/news_pdfs/library_services.pdf). I am proud to note that our library system received A’s, but take it for what it is worth. In reality our best measurement of success is the increased circulation numbers and what our customers are telling use by using our library more and more every year, along with the continued financial support of the community. Does this mean that we are doing everything right? Absolutely not!

There is a large amount of discussion going on out in the blogosphere and other places about the role of the library in today’s high-tech world and into the future. While I don’t think there is a clear answer to these kinds of questions, the fact that the debate is going on is of itself interesting (remember I am not a librarian by training). For myself I believe that libraries will continue to have a role in the foreseeable future and believe that libraries need to be flexible and evolving entities that can quickly respond to the needs of their customers.

If you are interested, you can read the La Crosse Tribune article that got this post going (read here: http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2008/04/18/news/00lead.txt ), which I encourage you to do. But maybe most importantly for libraries and librarians, read the comments that follow the article.

As always, you thoughts are welcome!