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Branding the library: tech, books, both?
Alane of It's All Good writes "books" is the brand of The Library. Yet, according to (a very small study by) Research and Markets, as reported by Government Technology, the key to winning greater support for public libraries is educating the public in the use of these [new] technologies.
Ah, cognitive dissonance: the bread and butter of the aware librarian.
∞ | October 24, 2005 in librariana
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I couldn't get to the second link, but I read what Alane had to say and was not impressed by her simplistic interpretation. The entire concept of a library is based on books, and has been since the very first library. The very origins of the word link it to books. For a long time other materials have been available at libraries, and yet if you poll a bunch of people the first word association they produce is still books, of course. Just because people associate libraries primarily with books, the logical conclusion is not for libraries to "take the hint" as she implies, and focus solely on books.
Libraries are sources of information, and I am SO PROUD that libraries and librarians have been so responsive to the constant changes in information use. It would be easy to cling to that which is familiar and resist change, but that is not what I have seen at all in my community. Even the stereotypical older-lady school librarian at our nearby middle school has been attentive and responsive to the role of computers in the library. I once asked her if it was hard to adjust after who-knows-how-many years of doing things one way, to suddenly be spending a significant amount of time teaching kids to Google and troubleshooting computer problems. She looked at me like I was crazy, and said something to the effect of "It's not a nuisance. It's my JOB to be a librarian." To her, that said it all. This isn't called the Information Age for nothing.
If we ever get to the point where books take a back seat to other types of information, I will mourn the cultural loss. But I bet librarians would take it in stride and continue to offer new services to people with the same care and professionalism as always. Even if someday the average library branch consists entirely of computer terminals, periodicals, music, videos, but not a single book (I hope this never happens)--I know all those old-fashioned books will still be archived in the library system, and I bet for a long time afterward, people would continue to identify the brand of the library as books. In fact, maybe they would just keep the books around for decoration.
Now I'm getting on a tangent, but it just makes me think--books used to be central to the European concept of culture. I don't know if the average person is even aware of the definition of culture that relates to education and worldliness. So it seems fitting that as our culture becomes more commercialized, more temporary, and more superficial, the things which define our culture follow suit. I think this hurts the book medium because it can't respond as adeptly to the temporary and cconstantly changing demands of our culture as newer technologies can.
Further on the tangent, now I'm thinking of the role of books in high school English class. Weren't we just talking about all of the books we had to read that were primarily of historical or symbolic value? Instead of reaching students with the BEST example of a literary style, or replacing some of the clunkers with modern incarnations or avant garde stuff that would be more interesting and possibly easier to relate to, there is still a big focus on the so-called classics. What message does that send to young people? That books are history.
Posted by: Amanda | Oct 26, 2005 8:05:40 PM
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