Retiring Director Says Libraries Unharmed By High-Tech Age
Retiring director says libraries unharmed by high-tech age
By JOHN DUNN
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
JUNE 30 1983
The silver-haired man in the cool-blue suit leans back in his chair, waiting for the next question.
It is delivered: What would he choose to do if he were not the director of the Ann Arbor Public Library?
“Being a best-selling novelist wouldn’t be bad," says 60-year-old Gene Wilson, who stepped down to day after six years as library director. “Or an airline pilot, or the captain of a sailing cruise ship. There’s some fantasies for you.” Wilson’s 32-year-career at the library began when he arrived from Minnesota as a fledging librarian in 1951.
His interest in the world of books began much earlier. “I was a constant reader as a child,” he says. He thought about becoming a writer, then flirted with foreign languages, philosophy and English literature on the way to a degree in humanities from the University of Minnesota.
It didn’t take Wilson long to discover that “positions open to professional humanists are not very numerous,” and he entered a one-year program in library science -a decision that he has never regretted.
What has been most satisfying in three decades of life in the library? The chance to meet many people, Wilson says, and the steady growth of the library system.
“The single most satisfying thing occurred when the library got its own millage in 1973,” he said, referring to the one-mill library tax levy first approved by the voters in that year. “We don’t have to argue about the millage, and it gives us the ability to look ahead, to do long range planning.”
“People get the kind of library that they want,” he added. “And the people in Ann Arbor have been very supportive.”
Will libraries survive in the high-tech age? “It’s one of the cliches to say that there won’t be libraries as we know them,” Wilson said. “I don’t think that’s true.” Though the capacity to stuff shelves full of books into the electronic innards of a computer will continue to expand, he notes, it is unlikely that printed volumes will disappear -partly for the simple reason that “people don’t like to read off of television screens.”
Wilson’s library career began at the dawn of the television age. While he believes that television has led to changes in American reading habits, he does not agree with those who say that TV has drawn people away from libraries. “The library is more crowded than it has ever been," he said.
Not all the crowds have been welcomed. Last winter, patrons and Ann Arbor News letter-writers debated the merits of allowing the library to be used as a warm haven for local “street people” who had nowhere else to go. Some urged the removal of those chronically unemployed elderly men, but Wilson disagreed.
“There is no such thing as loitering in a public library,” he said at the time. “Within broad limits, everyone is treated alike in a public library regardless of clothes, regardless of wealth or poverty.”
One unpleasant fact of library life that Wilson has been spared during his career in Ann Arbor is a book-banning controversy. Occasional complaints about books in the library are received, he said, but “people in Ann Arbor are generally more concerned about a book that isn’t on the shelf than about one that is.”
One ironic aspect of being the library director, he noted, is that he has had little time to read books in the past few years. His meager free reading time has been devoted to magazines and periodicals.
“I intend to rectify that starting next week,” he said, looking ahead to his retirement.
Wilson and his wife Rose - who recently celebrated their 35th anniversary - will stay in Ann Arbor. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else,” he said. “Ann Arbor is the ideal retirement community.”
Wilson, like many other longtime residents, didn’t intend to make Ann Arbor his permanent home when he first pulled into town. He only planned to stay around for a year or two when he took that first job.
After he retires, Wilson plans to take advantage of the concerts, plays and lectures that he has not had time to enjoy fully in the past, and also hopes to take some courses in literary criticism and medieval history at the University of Michigan.
The Wilsons will also be doing lots of traveling in their customized van..
Their 5-year old grandson Anthony will be going along on the first retirement trip, an upcoming jaunt to Wisconsin for a visit with relatives.
"It's fortunate that he is perfect," Wilson says in describing Anthony. "Otherwise he would probably be spoiled."