On being free.

When something is offered for free, there are several common responses:

"OMG! I'll have ten!"
"What's wrong with it?"
"Well, I was going to pay for something better, but I guess this will do."
"What do I have to do in return?"

A little while ago, I heard the phrase "Free - not as in free beer, but as in free kittens" when describing free web-based tools for setting up online services. And today, to my surprise, when a work colleague jumped on the "Hey! Let's make a library blog!" bandwagon, I, strangely enough, found myself saying "No. We're not ready yet. Our team doesn't have the right attitude, our council's current publications policy won't allow for it, our current client-base isn't going to embrace it and we just don't have the resources!"

"We don't have the resources? But it's free!"

Yeah. Free, as in free kittens. And the last thing we need to all die from toxoplasmosis. Figuratively speaking.

Today, I also encountered the phrase "Free but not cheap." when describing a certain public service.

This was in challenging the attitude that a free service is, somehow, inferior to a user-pay service. I'd like to think that public libraries should be free, but not cheap. Just because we're free, doesn't mean that we should sacrifice quality. I've commonly encountered the attitude from some librarians that working in the public library sector is a dead-end career path, because we just don't get the professional recognition for the work that we do. But, in many ways, I think that working in a public library is possibly more challenging, as we have to work against a public misconception that, as a free service, public libraries don't offer quality. That it's a last resort, when it comes to finding information resources, rather than a service of choice.

Maybe that's a claim that we should aspire to - PUBLIC LIBRARIES - FREE BUT NOT CHEAP

It could work.