Last week, I asked people to answer this question:
What happens to libraries and librarians when virtually all of the information that we need on a daily basis is only a mouse-click away?
I had alterior motives for posing this thinking activity. Today, I will be attending the School Library Journal’s 2end Leadership Summit. The attendees of the summit will
…be rolling up our sleeves and exploring the rapid changes occurring in education; the impact of these changes on learners and educators in the 21st century; and the changing role of the school media specialist in this new landscape.
We’ll be asking you to react to speaker and panel presentations, synthesize information, and collaborate to create vision—and action—statements that respond to these cultural shifts. But don’t worry, we’ll be feeding you too!
It’s an amazing opportunity for me to listen to information professionals who are there treat their libraries like a set of egos, to take thins apart, and put them back together again, to explore new shapes, new structures, and new ways to serve citizens of an information age. If you have more to add, please return back to the original post, or add your comments here about the future of the library.
technorati tags:warlick, conference, library, librarian, sljsummit06
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Things I think we(school librarians) have to be thinking about:
1. Our physical spaces–how should they be changing? Not just the appearance, but the nature of them. Bookstore/cafe models for libraries–libraries as gathering places for community in the school. Wireless. Ease of use–Do our systems provide that?
2. Being technology leaders in our schools because we can use it in such an integrated way–it’s a natural part of the library/media center.
3. Being life-long learners.
4. There is a need to keep up with rapid change–how to facilitate that?
5. Library schools–what do they need to be doing to prepare school librarians?
Library conferences–what do they need to be doing to prepare school librarians?
Are there enough technology presentations at state Library conferences?
6. Internet filtering–authentic experience issues–How to handle this.
7. Librarian as teacher partner in learning.
8. How can library administrators in districts assist librarians in coping with Web 2.0 changes?
a few thoughts this fine fall morning.
If I could add to your list;
9. How can our professional orginzations help their members?
10. What can we do about colleagues that just want to stick their head in the sand? In my mind they will be the death of librarians more than anything else.
So many thoughts……
Many still think of librarians as the keepers of the books and of libraries as the place that the books are kept. I see the profession morphing into that of information specialist. I am the one who can help patrons find the information they need. I am the one that can teach patrons searching strategies and point them to worthwhile sources of information. I am the one that can teach how to surf the tsunami of information we call the worldwide web without being lost in the undertow.
I read The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman and I think he had some good insights. Yet I found the book raised as many questions as it answered. He talks of open source code and how people around the world contribute to this for free. Yet the question arises…how do these people support themselves? They have to have some kind of “day job†that pays for their living expenses. If that job benefits from the time they spend contributing to open source coding and the employer feels they get back as much as their employees give, I suppose a company might be okay with spending money to have their employees contribute to open source projects. Still, how many companies are so magnanimous with their employees’ time unless the direct benefit for the company is crystal clear?
What I see on the Internet is a shift to pay for service. Yes there is a lot of stuff out there for free, but the best stuff is available through subscription services or on a fee per use basis. You want an archived newspaper article? You can go to a subscription service like EBSCOHost or Infortrac or you can pay a fee directly to a newspaper to access and article. I don’t find this surprising. People want to be paid for what they do. They may make a small contribution to Wikipedia for free, but that critical article on images of light and dark in Romeo and Julie from a noted Shakespearean scholar…..show me the money.
That is where libraries come in. The state of New Jersey is doing an excellent job of providing its citizens access to online databases through its school and public libraries. Take a look at my library homepage http://deptford.schoolwires.com/67342101093851/site/default.asp
With the exception of Opposing Viewpoints and Coin3, these subscription databases are provided to our students free of charge. They are made available through our regional library cooperatives. Public library patrons have access to the same databases through JerseyClicks.
But is this surprising? The public library has always been the great leveler. Here anyone can gain access to the worldwide web, regardless of his or her income level. Here residents can access valuable databases without having to subscribe as individuals, at great expense, to access the information they need. The web is a great ready reference source, but if you want to do any type of in-depth research you need access to the subscription databases or to books. Google is scanning out-of-copyright books. But how valid is research based on hundred-year-old books? I would say not real good if you are looking to write a paper on archetypes in modern film.
Plus, the databases are fine as far as they go, but they don’t go far enough. I tried a free trial of Gale’s Literary Resource Center. It did give me access to a wealth of material. But it cost $3500 for a year’s subscription and after a year it’s another $3500. Let us say that most school systems are not swimming in money. I love their For Student series for high school students, but for $3500 I can buy a whole lot of books and at the end of the year I still have those books. It’s not like the information on Poe or Whitman is undergoing radical change each year.
Even more telling, however, they only included a small portion of the material published in their For Student books. Yes, I’ll get the biography of Poe and a little bit on The Tell-tale heart in the Literary Resource Center from Short Stories for Students. If I go to the book however I also get a plot summary, examinations of the characters, historical context of the story, discussion of the style and themes and two additional works of published criticism of the work. They only put a small portion of what is available in the book in their online database. What can I say? I looked. I tried. I did not buy.
I’ve read that library usage has increased with the advent of the Internet. This hardly sounds like the death knell of libraries. I don’t know what the future will bring, but for the time being, libraries are providing a valuable service to their communities and those communities are responding with increased usage of library facilities. No, libraries aren’t just about books anymore. They are evolving as information sources change. But, they are still the great leveler. They are still the place where all citizens have equal access to information. As such, they are too valuable a resource to lose.