So they are closing down libraries in the UK. I guess that comes as no surprise, but still a sad story. Branches have been closing in many towns and cities in the States for years. The library was once the sole entity bringing open knowledge into these communities. With the growth of the web that role has rapidly diminished.
The real driver diminishing the need for libraries as we know them is the advent of eBooks. It is only a matter of time before all books are digitized. And so beyond a public space in the community to bring people together (a great value by itself) what is the role of libraries going forward? How do they redefine their niche?
It is essential that institutions remain to provide open access to books and knowledge. To lose this in the digital age would be a great tragedy. Just because the need for the four walls of a library disappear the concept of what a library represents certainly should not.
The Mission
Here are a few mission statements of local libraries:
- The Howland Public Library provides materials and services to help community residents obtain information meeting their personal, educational and professional needs. Special emphasis is placed on supplying adults with current reading materials; on providing reference services to students (at all academic levels).
- The Mission of the Beekman Library shall be to assure effective, expanding, free library service for the community of Beekman and to lead citizens in anticipating their future needs for library services.
- It is the mission of The Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library to provide access to the world of social and cultural ideas to the community by offering a wide variety of materials and programs. The Library has a special mission to young children and their parents to encourage a love of reading and learning.
The mission of the library is more important than ever in the modern web world. Web sites are rife with incomplete or worse completely misleading or slanted information. Is this the only type of information access we want to provide to our children?
Super Libraries
New super-libraries are not the answer. There are a number opening or planned to open in the UK such as the one in Birmingham. The description of the new library has a glass building wrapped in delicate metal filigree. Sounds more like a mall than a library. Should a library become more like a Borders or a Starbucks to survive? Maybe, until you realize that Borders is struggling and likely to go under. The victim of Amazon and the ever expanding online world.
As the world all around us changes why do we have such a hard time adapting our concepts from the past to this new world of the future. Why does a library have to have four walls at all?
Running a successful public library in the 21st century is tough. Foot traffic is down and book loans are massively down. In the UK only 14 of 151 local authorities have libraries that offer eBooks. Rather than investing in building these new monstrous libraries shouldn't the investment be geared toward digitizing libraries across the country and making them available online. Working with DRM providers to allow books to be checked out to an iPad or Netbook for three weeks before being removed. This serves all interested parties from publishers to libraries to readers. Libraries must "move with the times to stay part of the times" and if you care passionately about libraries and the mission of libraries then embracing the obvious future with a new goal and mission for libraries must strike a chord.
Digitizing Libraries
Many books today have been digitized. A significant portion of research is already digital. As the eBook initiative continues to build momentum in the scholarly community with the UPeC and UPSO it is only a matter of time before books are something we find in antique stores.
I am of a generation that loves the look and feel of books. But after watching my son lug 12 pounds of books in his backpack to school every day I am sure when the day comes he will not miss them one bit. I wait for the day when our local Charter school sends me the bill for a Kindle or iPad... The next generation simply has embraced an all digital world and lets face it there is really no looking back.
There is indeed an opportunity here. If the Birmingham library has 2.5M books stretching over seven floors at the disposal of residents all over the city imagine what a digital library could present. All the world’s libraries with billions of books available to every student on the globe with online access. Imagine putting that many books at the fingertips of every man, woman, and child in your community. If the goal of a library is to truly make knowledge available to the public then this new vision should be broadly embraced as rapidly as possible.
The Online Library
If we can contribute anything toward this inevitable revolution it should be how people use and interact with a digital library online. In a web 2.0 world this is a great opportunity to shape that future in a way that contributes to the knowledge of all participants. How will we search these vast repositories of digital libraries? How will we participate? That is the question we should really be asking ourselves.
Will advertising and commercial interests take over library research? Will pop-up ads for Halo become the norm when searching for books on Winston Churchill or more scholarly research for Tyrosine Phosphatase Receptors? I don't know about you but my kids are already exposed to enough. Commercialism and teaching are an uncomfortable mix. Access to the worlds libraries should remain unrestricted and commercial free. And Jumper can help you build a great app to find and share information resources without ceding more control over information access to ... (insert megalomaniacal privacy selling software company here). Whatever platform you choose a combination of open source tools published under the GPL would best serve the needs of research and public libraries as they strive to meet the digital challenge.
Computers are not the enemy of the library. They are its greatest opportunity. It seems only a matter of time before we move completely to an app driven world. The laptop, Windows, Web world we know today will be swept away. I already rely on apps for countless services instead of searching the web for this information. The Google portal will be the big sacrifice in this transition and with it a significant portion of their ad revenue. Don't weep for Google as they will be Apple's prime competitor with the Android platform.
If search becomes just another app then how will our use of search change? No doubt search will become increasingly specialized and segmented. Hmm a search app for each need and audience. OK so here is my pitch for a library app. Just because the need for the four walls of a library disappear the concept of what a library represents certainly should not. It is time to replace foot traffic with eyeballs just as the rest of the world is doing.
Read Part 2 Next >
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