… there are seven laptop users, each facing the window looking out towards downtown, and the Puget Sound just beyond. The guy in the row in front of me is gaming. He has a mouse hooked up, earplugs on, and he pauses only to answer his cell – whose ringer is turned up enough to get past the phones. “I’m in Seattle,” he says, and goes outside to continue his chat. Another guy is surfing the web. Looks like he’s on the Times’ site, and he’s playing an mp3 without phones. No one seems to mind. It actually makes me feel like I know him a bit better. Oh, there goes an IM message. Now he’s chatting away. The third guy is tapping his way through some word document. Again, he pauses only to pick up his cell (the call wasn’t important enough – he goes back to tapping). I could go on … we range in age from early twenties to mid-forties.
While I was in library school, I spent a lot of time mulling over the various controversies related to public access computing in libraries. Should we let them use instant message? What about games? And we shouldn’t put up a space for patron comments – what if we don’t like what they post on our site? Or what if we don’t like what they look at on theirs? In the midst of all this a friend of mine says to me: “the most important information in my daily life is, simply, what are my friends doing?” As librarians, I think we should take note.
The web now offers numerous tools to meet this most basic, and perhaps critical, information need. It may have started with communication technologies, such as seniors learning how to email their grandkids, etc., but it’s not just about communication anymore. We can do so much more than dialog. Sure, I still want to know specifically which of my friends is going to pick me up, and what movie we’re going to, and when – all of it conversation – but to participate in any social activity, I now also want to know about the films my friends are seeing, and what they thought of them. Take any other social activity and we follow the same path: I also want to know what new music I should be paying attention to, the latest serial review, and what books I should borrow or buy. Why would I care what Nancy Pearl recommends for this or that occasion when the people who I know and know me already have a top ten list recommended list suggested in my Amazon account? My friends and colleagues are the experts in my life. Now there are a variety of tools that make this type of thing possible. On digital turf, our personal preferences create groups, and those groups even develop our own content, and take care of our own collections. We even depend on each other to organize and provide access to those collections. Dare I say it? We don’t need the library.
It sounds brash, I know. But what I’m saying is that these tools largely disintermediate the library from me and my daily information needs. Without continued investment in public access to computers and information technology, the library will surely become irrelevant to me and those who share this culture. Is this blasphemy? From a librarian? Is there anything that’s still relevant to me about my library? The first thing that comes to mind for me personally, honestly, is when I truly want to borrow a connection (public access station or wireless) or a piece from the collection (book, map, cd) and not buy it. The library comes in handy for that. Another thing is my strongly held view that people who do not have the means to buy their own access to collections and connections – have a place to do what I am able to on my own. Ok, I like our fancy new building too. That gets me there a bit more. But with all of this more personal and relevant-to-my-life information sharing, content developing, and collection nurturing, my visits to the library happen less and less frequently. Now, if the library were to hook me up with my other peeps on the far end of that long tail, wouldn’t that be something?
I hate to make my personal take on things universal, but my experience calls us to question: do libraries currently have enough going for them to stay open? Some of them may. Is there enough there there to sustain this concept of libraries for the public good? I’m afraid we can’t sustain ourselves serving only the people in our communities who have no money; the benevolence of our government or other benefactors is far from guaranteed. Are there things that we should be doing and changing to stay relevant to our entire communities, making us sustainable in the process? Or, are we on the verge of another “hey! we should have done that – we’re librarians!” self-pity party? I hope not.
Hold on, that’s my cell…
“While I was in library school, I spent a lot of time mulling over the various controversies related to public access computing in libraries.”
I, Too!!!
I don’t think this is a blasphemous view, but very insightful, and I’m interested in exploring the future of public libraries, at: http://knowledgespacelibrary.blogspot.com/
No worries on saying things most new generation librarians think about off and on anytime a cell phone goes off every two seconds, or a laptop is propped open for some serious gaming whilst sipping a mocha chino. These activities have become so commonplace it’s hard to keep the image of the library as the great information provider, much less the relevant tool in our daily lives.
But before we seriously dampen our moods with our seemingly professional irrelevance, I would mention cell phones, iPods, laptops, and the myriad gadgetry of the college-bound or affluent twenty-something and up have little or no need of library services beyond the connectivity issue you mention. Those less fortunate, the ones without the high connectivity for gaming, who may even lack computers at all, or may simply need to fill out a job application online, check out a CD or movie for the kiddies, curl up with a great book but cannot afford the book at Barnes & Noble and get the latte…I say the library matters a great deal to them, and countless others who depend on these and many other services libraries offer.
agreed that the library is still relevant to a great many people. it is still relevant to me for the reasons that i described … but my point is that we are not relevant to a great many others, and we need to become relevant to them (especially young people) if we are to survive and thrive in a resource deficient environment.
Yes, young people need a reason to make the journey, don’t you think? It’s not just about IT resources, although I agree that, certainly in Britain, so many young people don’t have access to computers at home, or adequate access at school. I’ve spent a lot of time in libraries talking to young people, and they want places that are “cool ” to visit and hang out in, with really relevant stuff for them going on, and that’s so rare in my experience in British public libraries. They often feel deeply patronised by signage saying “Teen Zones” etc. And I have researched many libraries that put young people in a physical space ghetto,literaly “walled in” by bookstacks.
Further thoughts on the relevance of libraries to young people at
http://knowledgespacelibrary.blogspot.com/
“I also want to know what new music I should be paying attention to”…why continue the “sheep” mentality?
I hope you don’t mind, I found you through Clicked! on MSNBC.
I’m a Seattleite as well and the new Central Library is just simply amazing and beautiful. I was actually there yesterday, on my way there later this morning and tomorrow as well. You see, I have a full time job, and a full time college student (don’t ask me how, even *I* don’t know how I’m doing it) and I’ve got papers to write.
I tried reading back for what y’all think on Google’s and Yahoo’s ideas to digitize library materials? But perhaps I missed a post, could you point me in the right direction or comment?
Personally, as one who embraces digital technology I think this would be a great boon to a great many people all over the world. Obviously DRM restrictions as we’ve learned can be put onto anything, music, movies, e-books, so why not library materials? I think it would be a great thing to use my library card number to logon to the Seattle Library, find a book and “check-out” the e-book for it’s normal period after which point it removes itself much like downloaded rentable movies do. Ever tried Movielink or Cinemanow? I believe that DRM can prevent printing or copying or even highlighting/copying/pasting. I’m not 100% positive though. I believe the technology is there to implement such a system.
The question is asked here, “do libraries currently have enough going for them to stay open?”
Not long ago people went to libraries just to find books, read books, consult records, to do research, and little else. Now you make it seem as if those things are totally irrelevant to what you call your culture.
Anyone who cares about the past cannot afford to abandon books. Most books are not available in electronic formats and paper is not going away any time soon — at least, for anyone who wants to know about the past (more than a few years ago). The suggestion that libraries are irrelevant surely needs to be qualified. I find it incredible that the discussion about the relevance of the library treats it solely as if it were intended to be an internet cafe.
Does anyone really think that books and written records are irrelevant? I suggest that those who do get an education. If your “daily information needs” are limited to chatting with friends and checking the strengths of the latest peer pressures, you probably had no business being at the library to begin with.
Libraries were intended to be houses of knowledge. There’s more to know than the latest headlines. I just hope that library scientists will agree with me.
someone: it is not a “sheep” mentality. my friends are the “experts” or “readers’ advisory” in my life, that’s all. i know them, trust them, they are intelligent, interesting people with diverse interests and needs. i used entertainment as an example of social activity in my post, but we’re also reading Harper’s, The New Yorker, linking to D-Lib and First Monday, passing and commenting on innumerous library related blogs, and recommending items from collections that you can certainly find in most libraries. the long tail allows libraries (and vendors, for better or for worse) to help people connect with the stuff they really want and need, not the stuff that’s on the best-seller list, or that their local librarian determined that they should be interested in. it’s the opposite of the sheep mentality, actually, I think.
Kevin: In my comments I do not discount libraries as collectors and purveyors of books or physical collections. I acknowledge that libraries are still relevant to a great number of people for a great number of reasons. I am simply pointing out that we are not relevant to another group, and that we should become relevant to that group if we want to keep libraires open, and moving forward (some of these folks consider libraries a virtue, like me, but that won’t keep the lights on!) Also, don’t be so quick to undermine the power, intelligence, wit of the group who *thinks* they don’t need the library. The Internet facilitates much more than the latest headlines. It is also a house of knowledge … the knowledge of the community using the Internet. I’m just saying that we should tap in and value that as well. My post is a challenge to libraries to serve this community as well.
Chris: I’m glad you found this post! The Seattle Public Library has many digital projects underway. The next time you’re there, check-in with any library staff person and they’ll show you what they’re doing, and what’s to come!
Yes, to keep libraries relevant and moving forwards for library staff, the public who presently use them, and those who presently don’t find what they want there, it is vital to “tap in” to all these people. The question I have spent several years addressing in my research and projects, is how do we actively engage the experts (front line staff), together with the public, in envisaging the libraries they want and need? More on this active engagement at: http://knowledgespacelibrary.blogspot.com/