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The ALA Office for Information Technology Policy
(OITP) sponsored an informative program on the Future of America's Libraries on Saturday, June 28
as part of ALA's new Program on America’s Libraries in the 21st Century. Speakers
were asked to describe what they felt libraries would be like in
the next 10 years.
Joan Fry Williams, of Joan Fry Williams Consulting,
said that libraries are primarily in the ideas business. We are not in the "objects" business,
which focuses mainly on collections of books and other physical items. She
expects people to perceive libraries as being in the "thought processing" business. This
transforms the library from an agency that sees itself as a circulator
of objects to one that sees itself as an engine for creativity and community
thinking. In this way of thinking, the book is a "portable experience" rather
than simply as an object. This way of thinking represents a fundamental
shift from seeing the library as a warehouse for objects. Libraries
will build trust and authentic relationships with the community, and service
models are relationship-based. She described a study she conducted
in which she asked people who used libraries to describe the way they relate
to the library. What do they call themselves? The answer was
surprising. People did not describe themselves as "patrons",
or "customers", or "users" as librarians usually do. People
described themselves as "members". She said this is indicative
of the need for authentic relationships with our "members". People
may want confidentiality, but she believes they do not want to be anonymous. To
meet this need, she believes libraries need to do more predictive modeling
to anticipate member needs. We should look at the library not as
a storehouse, but as a laboratory. The library should be a place
to do things, not just to get things. We want members to come in
and stay, not pick up and run. The library is a destination where
people find stimulation and relationships.
José-Marie Griffiths, University of North Carolina School of Library
and Information Science, said that the future of librarians is better than
the future of libraries. Librarians are working in a wide range of
settings and there is a distinct difference emerging between the library
and the librarian. This is an emphasis on the knowledge and skills
of trained librarians as information navigators and guides. There
is greater need for the human element that librarians bring to their work. The
library itself is less identified as a collection of books as it is a community
space where the community can come together to understand itself and recreate
itself. One idea suggested was to experiment with a concept called "lay
reference" in which the library provides a means for members of the
community to share their knowledge with other members. In this way,
a library might "index" the people and their specialized knowledge,
even to the point of creating MARC records for people, as a community
resource for sharing and community building.
David Lankes, OITP Fellow and Assistant Professor,
Syracuse University, said we should not ask the question, "What is the future of libraries?". Instead
we should ask, "What should be the future of libraries and librarians
in a democracy?" It is acknowledged that we are a noble, global
good. He introduced the concept of "participatory librarianship". Knowledge
is created by conversations. Libraries are in the knowledge business. Therefore,
libraries are in the conversation business. The participatory approach
tells us that it is not the library that is in control of the information,
but that the user is in control. It is all about learning, and learning
is a collaborative endeavor. The role of librarians is to facilitate,
not control, the conversation.
Lankes believes libraries need to focus on knowledge
creation rather than the collection of artifacts as the core value for
libraries and librarians in the future. He doesn't mean that librarians who must create the
knowledge. Knowledge creation is the result of engaging users as
participants in the creation of their information systems. Lankes
is quick to point out that when he speaks about the need for "conversations" between
librarians and library users, he is not speaking metaphorically. He
means actual interpersonal conversations where all those participating
(the "conversants") create the library environment together. This
means there are real conversations, using real language, and resulting
in agreements that become part of a community memory. What the library
is, and can be, arises from these conversations. Above all we should
remember that the user is in control. The library should be more
about learning than collecting and circulating, and learning is mainly
a collaborative conversation with the librarians serving as facilitators
of the conversation.
Lankes' Participatory Librarianship model is a
refinement of an idea that has been with us for some time – that librarians should reach out
beyond the library walls and become part of the community. Traditionally,
however, outreach was intended to expand awareness of library services
and to increase usage of the library. This older model still was
based on the library creating the environment and users using it. Participatory
librarianship takes this concept to a new more fundamental level. It
challenges us to let users create the library more directly.
Giving up our traditional control over all aspects
of the library may not be easy, but will be the key to the future where
our users will expect to be participants in creating the library not
just consumers of library services. When we take note that a new
generation is growing up completely immersed in environments like
Facebook and MySpace that give them control over their information spaces,
we must ask ourselves what this means for what type of participatory
relationship they will want and expect to have with their libraries.
A
video of the program is available at http://link.ixs1.net/s/lt?id=c3171277&si=q111302962&pc=q2047&ei=n222790
A website describing the concept of "participatory librarianship" is
located at http://www.ptbed.org
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