"We're competing with everything: the beach, the mall, bookstores. Libraries are in a transition right now, caught between two forces, the old ways and technology. Libraries are under a lot of pressure to provide both"
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Competing with the beach is a deliberately humbling comparison: Callahan drags the library down from its civic pedestal and drops it into the marketplace of leisure. That move is the point. He’s not lamenting the decline of reading so much as describing attention as the real scarce resource. In his framing, a library isn’t up against “anti-intellectualism”; it’s up against sunlight, shopping, and whatever feels frictionless at 3 p.m. on a Saturday. The subtext is pragmatic, almost bruised: culture doesn’t win by moral superiority, it wins by being chosen.
The “two forces” line taps into a familiar institutional anxiety - not whether technology is good or bad, but whether the library can survive being asked to perform two identities at once. The old library is quiet, curated, slow, gatekept by rules and reverence. The tech-shaped library is fast, service-oriented, and judged like an app: is it convenient, is it updated, is it worth the trip? “Caught” is the key verb; it implies the transition isn’t a bold reinvention but a squeeze.
As an actor, Callahan’s perspective reads less like policy and more like stage direction. He’s pointing to the library’s shifting role in the public imagination: from temple of books to multi-tool community space, expected to be both nostalgic refuge and modern infrastructure. The pressure he names isn’t just budgetary. It’s narrative. Libraries must persuade people they still belong in a world where entertainment is portable and “free” feels like a click, not a building.
The “two forces” line taps into a familiar institutional anxiety - not whether technology is good or bad, but whether the library can survive being asked to perform two identities at once. The old library is quiet, curated, slow, gatekept by rules and reverence. The tech-shaped library is fast, service-oriented, and judged like an app: is it convenient, is it updated, is it worth the trip? “Caught” is the key verb; it implies the transition isn’t a bold reinvention but a squeeze.
As an actor, Callahan’s perspective reads less like policy and more like stage direction. He’s pointing to the library’s shifting role in the public imagination: from temple of books to multi-tool community space, expected to be both nostalgic refuge and modern infrastructure. The pressure he names isn’t just budgetary. It’s narrative. Libraries must persuade people they still belong in a world where entertainment is portable and “free” feels like a click, not a building.
Quote Details
| Topic | Technology |
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