The Good Library Blog

The problem, Gareth, is that we have to know what libraries are for. If we can't say what we are going to do, we have no right to take public money. Nothing can be managed, or achieved, if we don't know what we are trying to do. Public libraries simply cannot, ever, be 'all things to all people'- that is unaffordable and unachievable. For that reason we need leadership and that leadership needs to be able to say "This is what we do, and this, therefore, is what we do not do" Urgently

An aspiration to "raise the culture of our society" should be at the heart of every decision re the Arts and Libraries. Turning selected issues (soft targets) into no more than a bean-counting exercise does a huge disservice to the people of this country that will result in an ugly and altogether more unpleasant society. In the past people of influence have held cultural values which have distinguished the nation and given us pride in our heritage. If officials, parliamentarians, bankers, arms merchants and many others feel free to assert their 'right' to blow taxpayers' money regardless, I feel we should not be over-senstive or morally outraged about taxpayers properly funding a public library service as an investment for our future literacy and cultural life. I welcome Gareth's comment and feel that he has raised a point that is important and should be passed on to the those who say "For this, we have no money".

A number of years ago I read an article, which I can't trace at this point, but along the lines of the following:

"Library and information science. (LIS), as a discipline, is relatively young compared with other established disciplines in both the sciences and social sciences. LIS as a subject of study gained recognition about a century ago [NB this is a US paper]"
http://www.jstor.org/pss/40323370

"Library and information science in Australia is relatively young (less than fifty years ... )"
http://iospress.metapress.com/content/cp3q0vabtp6qmgwk/

I'll leave readers to draw their own conclusions. One final quote from Andy Woodworth:

"Personally, I think it is due to a lack of scientific approach or thinking when it comes to evaluating and solving the problems of the library. And this goes up and down the scale and scope of the library ... Personally, I think it should be called Library Arts until it starts acting like a Library Science."
http://strangelibrarian.org/2010/08/the-future-of-the-library/ (scroll down)

For myself at least a picture seems to be forming. Whether or not anyone agrees!

We are in a time of societal change, the libraries if for no other reason have a duty to present the public with a reassessment. We are in the midst of an information and communication technologies revolution. What are the options for the public from here on in? One thing for sure though there is the potential for the libraries to do what they always have done (books, information, culture and community, etc.) but much much better with the new technologies. They would as well be tremendously good value for money (approx. £18 a year is the rough ballpark figure the libraries cost a taxpayer).

Gareth

Another way to think about how libraries have always changed is in the sense that what authors write always changes. Think of the writing being the library, rather than the technology.

Then - of course- the technology needs to be the best available, but it is of no interest if it doesn't provide access to the widest range of what is being, and has been, written.

Writers are the change agents of libraries.

I take your point. The Arts have a duty to cultivate the best in writing. And the library, by taking a reader centred approach, can be of great service to the public in this respect.
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A local playwright places an interlibrary loan for a book required for researching a play. I spot that it is out-of-print, know that http://openlibrary.org/ links to scanned e-books available on the web, and am able to provide an e-book copy (a discussion follows on our values re. e-book/ p-book, the former can be searched and bookmarked, annotated and citated (I've just made that word up ;), while the paper book research shows reads more quickly -- the borrower chooses to use both). Another borrower is looking for a copy of sermons from early this century by a Mormon preacher. Using the web I can locate a copy of the book in a library in the states, there were second hand copies available for sale, the e-book though proves a bit more tricky to track down but someone had in fact scanned and placed the book on the web. Again the reader had their copy of the book within minutes as opposed to a delay of around a week. An elderly lady asks for a copy of a classic, the library have none on the shelves, again it is to be found on the web (an e-book, though she also had the option of ordering a second hand copy at minimal expense from a local community bookshop -- could a bookshop or library in the future print the e-book?). A lady is trying to track down a particular volume/edition of a bible (mentioned on a Channel 4 programme), she has tried and failed once, so asks at the Central library for help. Using a combination of WorldCat, Amazon, and Talis, I am able to identify exactly what she is looking for, and locate a copy in UK libraries. A gentleman asks about a book he once read 25 years ago, no title or author, just what was in it. Using the Internet a specialist publisher in the field was located who quite quickly identified the book (and suggested a few similar). Again though this took a matter of numbers of minutes with the Internet and email and by a counter assistant in a community library. It is common for a library assistant to employ the use of Amazon nowadays, how many staff have used WorldCat to research books using LC subject headings. All of the above are examples of service that could now at least in theory be provided in community libraries using technology that more traditionally a Central library would have carried out. If the theory is that new technology is applied until all the possibilities have been exhausted, then the libraries have a lot of work to do :) (As a side note this is no time to dumb down the skills of the frontline community library staff.)
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Writers appreciate the opportunity to communicate more with their readers--there is now a vast field of work for libraries to do in connecting readers with writers given the new communication technologies we have.
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As a library assistant I was able to connect readers reading Catcher in the Rye with the Book Club choice The Help, but I was only able to do this having kept up to date on the literary world using the Internet (sadly not as much as I would like to). I would very much like to get Library Web developed so that anyone could do what I have done with public library culture on the web similarly to their own field of interest and the culture of the subject to be found on the web (so far all my erstwhile efforts have unfortunately failed - any suggestions appreciated). It would be my hope that maybe a group of library staff and partners in the literary world would then perhaps maintain a news radar site for books and authors (similar to Library Web), using a website with everything set up for them ready to go, so that library staff could easily keep up-to-date with the latest goings on in the literary world (whilst building an archive also). And pass this on to their communities. (The public are usually very grateful for any help they can get! And knowledge of books [for their £18 a year] is a big bonus.)
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For their £18 a year the tax payer gets 30,000 books (hopefully) within walking distance (a 'concise edition' of the full breadth of our culture), a further million or so in their Central library, together with the stock of the authority and nation at their disposal also [50 million books?]. However the currency is the content of those books, not how many of them there are, the writers. For their £18 though the library service can with the new communication technologies available connect readers to books in a way that the public will find highly of value. The writer can then gain the recognition that they deserve. The libraries playing their part in the cultural ecosystem to the fullest potential.
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[OK, I could go on writing, but one has to stop somewhere ;) Machines cannot as yet, unfortunately, write. I'll maybe write a second post on the Information technologies society now has and libraries.]

Gareth, Surely librarianship should be neither an art nor a science, but a skill. Science is an abstract body of knowledge separated from its practical application, while art is no longer rooted in everyday life, but has become a commodity separated from practical use.
Whereas skills embody the practical application of knowledge and creativity.
Choosing how to define librarianship certainly has radical implications for the way libraries develop and relate to their readers.