Disclaimer: After reading this again, I realize that I am making some pretty dramatic statements that apply to a lot of people, most of whom I like a lot. So it is important that I explain that the writer of this blog bares no resemblance to any librarian you have known or not known. I have no formal training in the management of libraries or the science of librarianship. I speak as an outsider, and my ideas should be treated as such. With this in mind, please read on -- or not!
Waking up, high in the Smoky Mountains, somewhere west of Boone, North Carolina, has emboldened me to attempt to describe two shifts in the functions of libraries and librarianship. First, we’re up in the mountains, living in a magnificent house, by a golf course celebrating my father’s 80th birthday. It was a surprise to him, although I suspect that the severe gravel roads that brought us up here probably were not entirely comforting to him — until we arrived. All four of us boys are here with our families.
Now, on to the point at hand — since I’m the first up in the morning, surprise, surprise, surprise. I wrote, while at NECC, about a school librarian I rode the conference shuttle with, and the conversation we had about cut-backs in school libraries. That article drew a good bit of conversation (especially after I fixed the problem that initially prevented people from commenting). It is an issue that deserves a great deal of conversation, because there is no doubt that the institution is in jeopardy.
First of all, I would like to make an important distinction that I see, when I think about that conversation. There is an important difference between libraries and librarians. Libraries, as we think of them, are soon to become obsolete. What will be the point of a library, when nearly all of the information that its patrons need on a day-to-day basis will be available to them with a mouse-click. Certainly people will continue to want to come to the library for fiction and for traditional research, but in a world with 500 cable channels and broadband Internet streaming into people’s homes, this will simply not be enough to continue to invest in libraries. I don’t like to say this. I’m a romantic, with it comes to information. However, we live in an exhilarating time of change, and that’s where our enlightened focus should be.
Librarians, by contrast, are more important today than they have ever been. We all live in a global digital library where we search, subscribe, synthesize, archive, and even maintain our own personal digital libraries. The problem is that almost none of us know how to do these things to the degree that would bring full benefit of the Internet home to its users. We need people to somehow teach us how to do these things. No one is more qualified to lead us into the information/knowledge/conceptual age than librarians. Granted, librarians have much to learn about managing digital networked content, and that learning will never be fully accomplished. Life-long-learning is an occupation that we all share. ..and quite frankly, any librarian who does not believe this, deserves the book shelf they’ll be left on.
Yet, we still think of the library as a container. We continue to value books, bookshelves, card catalogs, and the other containers of content. This is the past of information, but it is not the future, nor is it a significant part of its present. We’ve been comfortable with containered information, because it is easier to label — good or bad, authoritative or without authority. Being able to place value on containered information based on who wrote it or who published it, made the job of deciding its appropriateness easier. But when information no longer flows in containers, its source becomes difficult and sometimes impossible to determine.
In a time of rapid change, to disregard information, because its source can not be incontrovertibly determined, would be to waste a wealth of useful content.
Source, as a measure of information’s usefulness does not go away. However, I believe that one of the shifts that we will need to make in how we think about information and in the skills that we bring to bare on research is a shift away from source as the determining factor for using information and a shift toward value. The question will not always be:
Is this an authoritative source?
Instead it will always be:
Does this information effectively help me accomplish my goal? Is it valuable to my mission?
Most certainly the source will often be a contributing factor in determining information’s value, but it will rarely be the defining factor.
In one of my next blogs, I’ll describe why the obsolete library should not go away, but instead, meld into something else.
Technorati Tags: librarians, libraries, library, warlick
Try http://librarians.answers.com/
David — I\’m not certain what the disclaimer at the top of this post is about. Are you expecting flak? It seems to me that this follows perfectly from what you have been saying, and while you are not a librarian, you are a specialist in information. Reading the post, I don\’t find it all that radical. The only thing I might be concerned about is the widening technology gap — libraries have been built as a way to allow everyone to become more knowledgable, but computers and internet connections continue to be a high-dollar item for a large portion of the population. So the disappearance of bricks-and-mortar libraries has political implications. But the overall direction you describe seems correct to me. But then, I\’m not a librarian either.
Dear David,
This comment has nothing to do with the beginning of your post, just the ending portion.
I respectfully disagree with your proposal dealing with a “shift away from source as the determining factor for using information and a shift toward value.”
I still very strongly believe the determination of source is the most important, although this should be closely followed by “does this help me answer my question, meet my goal, etc”– what you refer to as the “value” of the information.
Erroneous (seemingly valuable) information may help you meets your needs and accomplish your goal, but also lead you down the wrong path.
(Of course, I am a librarian by training, and also a huge information consumer. I do believe the brick and mortar library will be changing quite radically. When I gave a talk in front of my local public library’s building committee, they thought I was a radical when I told them that their plan to double the stack size was probably not the best thing to do! (I love thinking about Thomas Frey’s vision found here: http://www.davinciinstitute.com/page.php?ID=120)
Kathy
David,
I have to believe that source and value both matter and are connected and are NOT mutually exclusive.
Information tasks vary. That’s one of the things we teach in school libraries. When does it make most sense to use the soldier’s blog, or the extensive Wikipedia article on that instrument your son plays? When does it make sense to use the academic journal article from the subscription database? When is information satisficing okay? When should we strive to find high quality and how do we find and use it? What type of information does your boss, your teacher, your audience expect or rely on?
How do I prepare my students to compete in the rich information landscape they will face in academics and business? I (and my colleagues) want to prepare learners to make decisions about BOTH value and authority. I want to offer learners the richest possible information toolkit possible on- and offline. Through a library I can provide such richness!
Information decisions are no longer black and white, actually, they never were. I teach students strategies to grapple with gray and I try to organize the chaos.
School libraries are hybrid experiences. I occupy a window on most of my students’ home desktops. And I am there 24/7 with resources and with reference interaction. I gather and share the instructional resources of the entire learning community.
Library is both an online and offline destination. Physically, it is where students come for instruction that is reinforced online and supported remotely. Online and offline, it is a place where students work with both independence and as-needed intervention. It is where groups of students go create media products using 21st century tools that many do not have at home. It is a haven and a place for shared experiences. Some of those experiences are brought in through the library through telecommunications—the expert, the remote author visit, the university scientist. It is a place for guided inquiry. It is a place where teachers go to learn about new strategies and new tools and where they find a partner in designing and assessing instruction.
Libraries, as I view them, have great relevance to 21st century learners. We think “collection†in ways many users do yet not recognize but rely upon. Our brand includes not only books, but subscription databases tailored to the developmental and instructional needs of all types of learners. It includes new access to downloadable audiobooks and streaming media collections, and ebooks–the stuff authors and publishers are not yet giving away under Creative Commons licensing. And by the way, we also model respect for intellectual property—both libraries and librarians.
We address inquiry and we address equity. We lend flashsticks and laptops and cameras and fiction. We lead users to open source alternatives.
My students know they visit the library even when they are in their science labs, even when they are home, even when they are traveling over the summer. It is not a container. It is not containable. Ask my students if both libraries and librarians are important, David, they will answer, “yes.â€
For more ideas, read my recent post: http://joycevalenza.edublogs.org/2006/07/26/you-know-you-are-a-21st-century-teacher-librarian-if/
David, I think that you are right on the mark regarding the changing nature of the role of librarians. However, I certainly don\’t think that this change is unique to librarians. As we move into the technology age, the nature of most jobs is shifting. All one has to do is read Thomas Friedman\’s The World is Flat to learn about these changes. Really, all one has to do is observe around them. You write of containers and the fact that things are becoming uncontained. Perhaps this can be stretched to the fact that as globalization takes place the \
David, kudos to you for bringing up a touchy subject. I agree with you that libraries as we know them will soon be obsolete. But I disagree about the influence and importance of what we now know as librarians.
The librarian’s profession is inextricably tied to a crumbling structure, and the vast majority are clinging to the rubble, not out there leading the charge to a new structure, web 2.0. Librarians should be leading. Instead, they are scrambling to catch up and adapt to new technologies.
Who is cutting through the forest, blazing the new web 2.0 trails? Ex teachers turned edtech evangelists, a handful of forward thinking administrators, a few classroom teachers (that’s me!), and many teacher trainers, IT support staff, etc. I do not see librarians anywhere in the mix. They should be, as you suggest. It’s just not happening.
There are exceptions, I am sure. I hope this will change, because librarians have so much to offer us all. – Mark
I feat this is going to develop into quite a long post, so I will just make a few quick comments and then take it over to Infomancy for further development.
David: Interesting thoughts, and certainly a discussion that needs to take place. I do hope, though, that you will think for a bit on the social implications of libraries in both public and school settings. Often, the library as a place is a safe haven for certain groups of students. Additionally, libraries continue to fill a critical role in bridging the digital divide.
To address source vs value, I am struck by a quick thought. I may respect Britannica as a source, but lacking an account for access, their information has far less value for me than Wikipedia. At the same time, if I am going to use Wikipedia I had best be VERY aware of the source. This is a new question for us though. As you point out in your talks, we have never before been faced with such a high number of possibilities for our information. It is in the face of this information chaos that librarians will be needed to manage, direct, interpret and even tame the information wilds. We will do this by organizing the information into containers. Why? Because it is going to be the only way to even begin to work with the flow of information we are now/soon to be facing.
Mark: I hate to get into something resembling a flame war, but your comments here are quite ignorant. If they weren’t so embarrassingly wrong, I would be offended; but since they lack any truth I think we can move right into debunking the many myths and stereotypes you are perpetuating.
Guess what? Librarians today don’t wear their hair and buns and say “Shhhhh!” as they flip through a card catalog. Librarians and library/information scientists are the power behind many of the Web 2.0 developments you seem to be worshiping. Please allow me to invite you to step outside of your predefined box and mosey on over to some of the library blogs that are leading the move through the digital re-shift. A good place to start is http://www.pubsub.com/lists/librarian.php. You will notice that I, as a librarian, follow education and edtech blogs to stay up on what my colleagues in these complimentary fields are working on. Why aren’t you?
My friend Joyce told me I would want to read this thread and she is, as always, on target. You’ve already commented on some of the comments but I’d rather be late than not show up.
I was in my school yesterday, sorting mail and solving order puzzles (who wants to face a summer’s worth when school starts? Yikes!) and fell into conversation with my principal who wants my husband and I to team up for the first course (AP Bio in which my husband’s scores rock) to launch the virtual component for our school. He can’t see how a virtual school would work without a virtual librarian. That should make for an interesting year, a new challenge. I then commented to Dave, the principal, that I’ve never started a school year without a new challenge which is why my job is so much fun. He commented that libraries are like that; they continue to change to meet the needs of students and learning.
Libraries are not obsolete and librarians are at all stages of change right now, some moving faster, some inching forward. But starting a school year doing the same thing, the same way? Oh, that is the exception. Thank heavens for today’s students!
As part of my research on the future of libraries for a presentation at ALA in New Orleans, I found a really interesting article describing the research of Richard T. Sweeney, University Librarian at the New Jersey Institute of Techology that was published in the Fall 2005 Library Administration and Management (LAMA) Journal. I found Rich in the exhibit hall and we talked about his research and the panel of college students he hadreact to library designs as part of an all-day library architecture institute.
His research about “Millennials’ shows that they do value libraries as places (places that look like libraries, with lots of technology that is not the in-your-face type of technology), and that part of the equation should not be ignored. Rich concludes that there needs to be rapid, immediate new services, services and buildings that are different and better. But libraries obsolete? No way. Changing? Oh, yes, and I am interested in your observations about that shifting.
Much of my library work is FROM the library, not IN the library. Much of my teaching is not in person. But students and teachers know that they have a library that is a place to relax and read a magazine, to find a book for independent reading, and to get one-on-one help with research design, whether its for personal interests or a senior project. My students know they can e-mail me from the third-floor lab or from home and that I will answer their questions. I can’t check off all of the points of Joyce’s list of 21st Century T-L’s but I’m working on a lot of them.
And so are a lot of others. My state school library association (SLMS/NYLA) is sponsoring a Leadership Retreat Aug.6-8 at Cornell as we do each year and every year it grows, over a 100 people this yearthe people there span the range of the profession–more women than men, more laptops every year, newbies to state ed people—all wanting to examine their practice and improve what they do.
Librarians ARE in the mix of Library 2.0. Maybe Mark doesn’t see them because we look and act like different people than he expects :-D. Librarianship is so much fun, such a challenge, and, thus, I’m never bored. And neither are Joyce, Kathy or Chris, I know. We’re all busy, overwhelmed at times, but we all have fun.
Here’s an interesting piece from Indiana:
The URL from the South Bend Tribune piece didn’t go through. It’s:
apprently not going to either…it’s from the South Bend Tribute
July 26. 2006
School librarians offer essential guidance to students
MICHIANA POINT OF VIEW by SUZANNE HINNEFELD:
Christopher and Sara,
I certainly do have a lot to learn. I have followed Christopher’s suggestion and started tracking down and reading librarian blogs. Cool! I will spend more time there. What struck me is that in over a year of reading blogs, I have encountered very little from librarians (hence my comment that sent me to the virtual corner). So I started looking at blogrolling lists on blogs. What I see is a surprisingly small crossover. There are not a lot of librarian blogs listed on teacher/trainer blogs, and there are not a lot of teacher/trainer blogs listed on librarian blogs. We all tend to stay by ourselves. I know I do this, and I know I’m not alone. There are many exceptions, but I’m talking about overall tendencies.
We need to realize we are all working toward the same goals, and widen our circle a bit – or a lot. Consider my circle widened. – Mark
Mark, as one of those few bridge builders between the library and education/technology worlds let me just say thank you! I know that there have been other connections made, and David Warlick has been an incredible ambassador (he was even the American Association of School Librarians President’s Speaker at the American Library Association Annual Conference this June). Sadly, even in a world of connectivity we still tend to opperate in silos. Not only was I one of the very few people to bridge the divide between libraries and ed/tech, I was the first school library blogger to get any sort of notice by the rest of the library blogging community. I had to fight and argue to get any other school library blogs listed on PubSub.
Thanks for taking the time to check out some of the blogs. I appreciate your willingness to expand your viewpoint!!! Let me know if you would like to undertake some additional bridge building exercises like cross-posting on blogs! =)
David, You are so wrong with this blogging idea! To assume that libraries are going to be obsolete is ludicrous. Why is it that every town I go into in the last twenty years, I search out the library? More times than not, it is a \\\’new\\\’ library whether it be in the far West, Southeast, Northeast; these have been paid for through folks\\\’ taxes and money drives. People in general have an unsatible desire to just read what\\\’s out there, whether it be in the written form or computerized. I am a librarian and have been for 30 years taking my degree work at a small college in Pennsylvania, where I write this. Saturday is just an example of a new branch opening up, folks were standing in line until the doors opened for computer work, book reading, DVD\\\’s etc… I have gained employment at the National Fire Academy Library, the federal government at Letterkenny Army Depot, have a 12 rating with the federal govenment in Librarianship. I have worked in libraries across this fair land, one in New Jersey, one in Ocala, Florida, where incidently, a new library has just been dedicated and new branch is healthy and going strong! I really think you need to visit more libraries and see what they are about and to retract some of your blogging!
At the Laptop Institute in Memphis, you showed a very powerful film clip that a student had prepared on labor practices overseas by multinational companies. When you state that value is more important than source, I reflect on that film clip and remember that I thought it was powerful, but that the facts reported needed to substantiated. We have a responsibility to help our students realize that they need authoritative sources and that they need to check facts if they are going to report news globally. To do otherwise puts them at risk for legal action. Just as any ethical reporter needs to do fact-checking, so do our students. The student report on international labor practices and conditions was powerful and moving, and it was on a topic that I have had a personal interest in for years. (As a personal aside, my children were not allowed to purchase Nike products for years because I read reports that they violated child labor practices). I would argue that both value and source matter. The source needs to be reliable and verifiable. With the ease of communication in today\’s world, it become more and more difficult to correct erroneous information once it is released and the information shared has the power to cause enormous damage. Like the feather pillow in the folktale, once those feathers are out of the pillow, there is no way to collect them. The wind will take them anywhere and everywhere.