4

Four.  That's how many newspapers were outside my door this morning.

When I was growing up we used to have our milk delivered.  I'm sure there were several reasons for this: a hold-over from when refrigeration wasn't as good and a lack of second cars to lug the milk around being the main ones.  Over the years 'milkmen' have just about disappeared -- the last one delivering in our neighborhood retired a couple of years ago and no one replaced him.  I would have predicted that fewer people would be visiting houses each day not more, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I only paid cash for one of those papers.  The others are either free, a 3-month trial, or from frequent-flyer miles (use them or lose them, and I never seem to accumulate enough to use them for free flights).  But yesterday was trash day:  three different trucks went by our house picking up the main trash, recycling, and lawn debris.  Not to mention the possibility of another one I didn't use for large items.  Over the course of a week I calculate:

• 6 mail deliveries
• 3+ trash pickups
• 23 different newspapers and flyers

That's just for our house.  I know there at least a couple of daily papers we don't get, not to mention all the dry-cleaner deliveries, solicitations, school buses, FedEx, UPS, etc.  There are literally hundreds of commercial cars and trucks in our neighborhood every week!

So, what does this mean to libraries?  I have to admit it wasn't as obvious to me as it was to Stu Weibel.  This is the last mile problem: getting physical objects to people.  Although libraries are more and more about digital objects, the local library business will continue to have a physical presence for a long time to come.  Lorcan Dempsey likes to talk about library logistics.  Academic libraries do pretty well at getting items to users via campus mail.  Publics have a ways to go.  And interlibrary loan should be easier for everyone.

--Th

Comments

[Lorcan]

The synergy in the Kinko's/Fedex deal is interesting in this regard.