Libraries in the Information Age – From Provider to Guide
I love books and I love quiet places. By extension, I love the library. I could spend hours in the library just reading near-random books off the shelves. In reality, though, my relationship with the library is somewhat transactional. Primarily, the library serves as an exchange, a place where I check in (online), request pre-identified books, physically go in to drop off and pick up books and pay the occasional fine. I think I’m only using about ten percent of my library. The rest, at least to me, is irrelevant.
Aside from access to printed paper, the library is a quiet refuge, a place to focus a little more internally and find some organized information in a steady stream rather than the firehose of the internet. In truth, there’s lots of places to do that. Any number of coffee shops are happy to have you do that for the price of a cup of coffee. Is the physical space and the money devoted to a library worth it?
To be fair, I can think of a few other things the library offers. It’s a place of “trusted” information with professionals that can help you find data and knowledge that’s vetted, tested and approved. There’s also education programs and lots of obscure books that can introduce you to new worlds. There is support for businesses and access to databases.
The fundamental contract we have with the library – we’ll pay tax dollars so you can make information available – is a deal whose death knell is fast approaching. It’s not that libraries haven’t kept their end of the bargain, it’s just that the internet makes it faster, cheaper and infinitely more efficient to stay home and get the same. I certainly love the focus on ideas that comes with reading a printed book, and I want that from the library. I could do without the big, air-conditioned building and all the administration. I suspect that there’s an Amazon-style model of book exchange that could lower our taxes by a good touch.
I don’t think the library is going to go anywhere anytime soon, though, and its disappearance would not be my first choice. My first choice would be to rethink libraries and shift them from a role of providing information access to leading us in learning how to manage our information. We’re experiencing an epidemic in our society right now. We’re losing ourselves, our purpose and our intentions to a glut of information. Libraries can be a big part of the solution.
Many of us don’t know how to manage all of the information that’s now so easily accessible. Heads bent down in the Blackberry prayer, texting at inappropriate times, the interruption of important conversations for the randomness of a ringing telephone, pulling an all-nighter in Second Life, watching another episode of Deadliest Catch instead of going to bed at a decent hour, mindlessley surfing Fail Blog… all this media can easily sidetrack us. Often, we don’t choose to apply our attention, our attention is simply stolen by whatever is in front of us. The library is the antithesis of “unplanned” attention, and building our capacity to be deliberate with our attention could be their cause.
If the library’s mission were to be, “We help people control the information,” they could:
- Help their users develop strategies to sort their daily stream of information
- Provide classes on keeping a clean email in-box
- Help users prioritize their information needs
- Communicate the importance of being deliberate with one’s attention
- Provide coaching on how to find and establish information feeds that are meaningful (I’d go to a course called ‘Getting Value from Twitter’)
- Help their users make personal learning plans to pursue their interests
- Research 101: Provide formal instruction on how to find information (and determine its credibility)
- Developing simple, flexible guides/frameworks for individuals to undertake self-directed study
I see this as being more valuable than a university education in many ways. Who needs university when the information on any topic is at your fingertips?
If you can find it when you need it.
Information and learning is now DIY. With information’s ubiquity, the barriers to knowledge are now our ability to search, sift and absorb. We would thrive with teaching focused on how to do this well. The library is in a pretty ideal position to take on the role.
I meant to comment on another post about libraries on another blog, but I didn’t . . . now you’re going to hear my rant!
I don’t disagree that libraries could be serving a different purpose more in keeping with modern times, but you’ve missed a crucial role that libraries are devoting significant resources to filling. My library provides free access to information – books, cds, dvds and the ‘firehose’ Internet. It provides that access to many people who don’t have computers or kindles at home or in their workplace. It also provides ESL and literacy programs, children’s programming, a Writer in Residence who coaches burgeoning writers . . . and a physical building that a safe place for anyone, regardless of their ability to pay.
I don’t think you can separate the library you describe in your post from the one that is fundamentally operating as a social service. (And I know you’re not arguing against paying taxes, but the Regina Library’s share is only 6% of property taxes . . . peanuts, really!)
Nevin,
Very timely and provocative posting for me right now as I am, ironically, right in the middle of reading a book called “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains” by Nicholas Carr. I recently took it out from the public library!
While not specifically writing about libraries, the author does a very thorough job of discussing the issues around brain chemistry as well as how various forms of technology that have developed over the past 2500 years or so have shaped human thought, society, and culture. It is very interesting to contemplate how things that we take for granted (such as the printing press) are now ubiquitous. Mass-printed text only showed up around 400 years ago but the impact of this on society has been incredible — from the invention of newspapers and books to cheaper and more widely accessible education.
Prior to the printing press a great deal of society was simply illiterate with a small elite of literate people, generally found within universities or monasteries. Cheap, printed material was revolutionary and it changed language and the way we think. The same thing is happening now with electronic media. Just as scribes became obsolete, seemingly so is printed text. I must admit that I have extremely mixed emotions about this as I, like you, am a book lover. I am an absolutely voracious reader of books — so much so that I am sometimes the object of friendly taunts from my peers. I enjoy holding a book in my hands – the feel of the pages, the lack of immediacy, the need to concentrate strongly for long periods of time and truly contemplate deeply what is being put before me. I hope that I never succumb to what I observe to be the “collective ADHD” of a lot of people who are currently very adept at using electronic media. I’m not sure that I’ll succeed though!
One of the arguments put forth in “The Shallows” is that consuming texts through hyperlinks, computer screens, smart phones, iPads/eReaders, etc. leads to a different type of reading – a type of reading that is not as focused on the moment; one that is easily, almost necessarily forced into distraction. I’ve definitely experienced this myself. Luckily I’m in my late 30′s and actually did learn how to be a focused and (I hope!) deep thinking student. I’m worried that this is not the case among the latest generations of children — I’m not sure that they’re learning to focus and contemplate things within the deluge of information that is coming at them from myriad devices.
This is where I can see and partially agree with your views on the public library. No doubt, as technology and delivery mechanisms change, the library will have to adapt itself. The start of this can already be seen to some extent in public and university libraries that I have visited lately. The emphasis on computer terminals and WiFi access is unmistakeable and quite convenient. I would hate to see the library turned into some sort of loud, collaborative chatterbox though with lots of multimedia noise and talking. As you’ve stated in your post, the library has been (and I’m hoping will remain) a place for quiet, focused contemplation. I wonder though if people will even be capable of quiet, focused contemplation in the future. I guess that is up for debate!
I personally cannot see it though give the ubiquity of Net-enabled devices. As you mentioned in your post, look at how many people today just can’t help themselves by interrupting what they are doing right at the moment to check an email on their Blackberry, take a call over their cell phone, or respond to a text message. I hate it when this happens when I’m having a “real time” conversation with someone. I think that this is extremely rude and shows very poor form but it happens all the time. If you do this to someone in a “real time” conversation you are considered rude and would likely not do so. Why then do people do this with their electronic devices? Strange. I guess that our society has a long way to go in terms of etiquette. Frankly, I’d like to throttle people that do this to me! Ironic no, since I seem to be so concerned about etiquette and civility!
One last point that I would like to note. I fundamentally disagree with you with respect to your comment regarding the usefulness of a university education in light of developments in the electronic world. I’ll extend your argument to education in general. It is easy for people like you and I to make statements like this given that we have already been through 3 or 4 layers of the education system and, I believe, benefitted greatly from it. I’d like to think that, along the way, we have learned a thing or two about how to be civil, responsible, literate, numerate, and mind expanded. Yes, all of the content for this can be found online but where is the guide? Teachers and peers — real people IN YOUR FACE — are extremely important to one’s socialization and development. Indeed, getting a fist in the face a few times for one’s transgressions (and also learning that fighting is not always the most appropriate way to solve one’s problems) is an important part of a young person’s socialization! This type of experience is lacking in an isolated, sterile, individualistic, online existance. Not all of the valuable experiences of a school or library can be replicated online, no more than Facebook or Twitter can substitute for in person communication and networking with all of the nuances of body language, touch, etc… This is not to say the our current education system and libraries, which were developed and geared towards the production of drones for an industrial age that has seemingly passed us by, don’t need to change and adapt but that such systems will need to be in place to guide children and young adults through the sea of information and opportunities (not all of which are necessarily good based on the current norms of our society).
I have noted that this is basically what your library argument is saying — I just can’t take the argument to the extreme that young people can self teach themselves using electronic tools. There will need to be a guide. There is a lot of data and information available via the worlds databases. My experience to date though, is that there isn’t a lot of WISDOM without a guide and without some degree of collective societal consensus around what is of value and what behaviours are acceptable. I think that this is in flux right now and hopefully we’ll be able to maintain some degree of collective consensus on what behaviours are acceptable and civil going forward.
Awesome post Nevin!
Hmmm… it appears I’ve missed something, and it’s awesome that I’ve been called on it. Thank you.
I believe I’ve committed one of my own cardinal sins and looked at an issue from a singular point of view, that of the priviledged, educated, upper middle-class. Oops. I see that there’s a strong argument, and real value, in this open, public institution as a place where individuals can receive hands-on assistance and instruction, adding structure to a possibly ephemeral notion of “I want to know.”
I love how this post sparked some passionate responses. Clearly, I’m not the only nerd in the room. Wouldn’t it be fun to get to redesign the way a library works? I’m on board with it being a physical institutions that serves the ENTIRE public, but I maintain there’s lots of room to shift focus to strengthening an individual’s ability to have personal dominion over the information. “Teach a man to fish” type stuff.
I’m sorry I called you nerds. You’re totally super-cool and your comments made my day.