An article from the Wall Street
Journal’s “Speakeasy” blog opens with a statistic from a Pew (an American
research centre) survey which claims that 34% of Americans think public
libraries haven’t kept up with new technology, while 55% disagree. Although
these percentages probably wouldn’t be identical in Canada, I don’t believe the
opinions of our citizens would differ very much. If I went into the nearest
library to my home in London, Ontario, I’m 99% sure that it would look just as
it had when I was nine years old. It’s a small neighbourhood library and the
only technology available to patrons comes in the form of computers provided
for using the internet or searching the library catalogue. The only NEW
technology I’ve actually seen appear is the digital self-checkout, which isn’t
exactly going to change lives or lead young minds into the future of publishing
and books as we known them. I’m almost positive I could accomplish more alone
in my room on my laptop than wandering amongst the limited stacks and massive
monitors at the library.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)
article presents a contrary suggestion. It claims that we need libraries, and
librarians, more than ever. I’d like to believe this is true. The institution
and the librarian are presented as a space and an instructor, where and to whom
one could go for help with unravelling the tangled ball of yarn that is
internet research. The president of the American Library Association, Barbara
K. Stripling, goes so far as to call librarians the “digital guides” of ebook
readers who may feel overwhelmed by the new technology. I am personally not a
reader of ebooks. I don’t know whether my own public libraries not carrying
this technology has had anything to do with it or not. However, if ever I were
to start checking books out of my local library on an ereader, I think a
librarian in the know would be a great asset. Librarians, in my opinion, seem
like trustworthy and authoritative individuals by nature. I believe I would
feel quite comfortable going to them on a device I was unfamiliar with as I
wouldn’t worry about being judged for my lack of know-how like I might be in
other locations or situations (e.g. at a computer store, or surrounded by
tech-savvy peers).
The next part of the WSJ article
goes from the ease of asking a librarian for help with research to the somewhat
unnerving concept of drones. Choosing between the two, I’d certainly prefer to
have a librarian walk me through the use of an ereader than have Rosie from
“The Jetsons”/the robot from “Lost in Space”/Marvin from “The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy” whiz over (or trudge depressingly, in the latter case) with
my digital copy of. . . War of the Worlds,
for example. I know I’m combining drones and robots here, but generally I’d
rather see ebooks as the future of publishing in libraries than a servile drone
who might accidentally roll over my foot or chuck a book at me from across the
library that whacks me in the head.
I think the WSJ article hits its
stride towards the end. The writer suggests that another possible future is
with “living libraries,” which allow patrons to be in direct contact with
librarians or other possessors of knowledge, no matter where they are. To me,
this sounds fantastic. I picture it as a sort of interactive encyclopaedia
where, once you’ve found information from a book (physical or digital), you can
expand on what you’ve gathered immediately with the help of an expert. It’s
basically like reading an intro to, say, American modernist poetry, then
getting a one-on-one talk from Gertrude Stein to expound upon the concepts you
just read. The benefit of the real thing being, of course, the exclusion of
corpse reanimation. Maybe this sort of thing would be over in the drone library
across the street. The last idea I find interesting from this article is that
future libraries could be destinations for participation in cultural
activities. I’m going to pick this up later on with a case study on the Boston
Public Library.
No comments:
Post a Comment