The Future Library?

There is a lot of talk these days about what public libraries might look like in the future.  Some pundits declare that libraries will disappear, replaced by the Internet--but then they have been saying that for the last twenty years and it hasn’t happened yet, nor is it likely to happen.

But public libraries will change.  They already have.  Consider this: when the public library system was inaugurated in Ontario in 1895, with the passing of the Ontario Public Libraries Act, libraries looked very different from today.  Many early libraries had closed stacks, which meant that the patron had to approach the librarian’s desk and request the book he or she required, which was then fetched from a part of the library that was closed to the public.  Libraries quickly moved to an open stack model, allowing patrons free access to the library shelves, so they could browse the books at leisure.  Another early and controversial change was the addition of popular reading material, like magazines and newspapers, to library reading rooms.  This raised a lot of eyebrows.  Libraries were supposed to be serious places for self improvement, not squalid dens pandering to the lowest popular taste.  Later we would add movies, LPs, large print books, audio and video cassettes, DVDs, talking books.  Now we even have items, like eBooks, that are not stored in the library at all, but exist only as digital files.  Recently, some libraries have begun lending things like carpentry tools and cake pans.  (We loan ukuleles). One of the biggest changes to happen in the past century, however, has been the creation of a children’s collection and a separate children’s area in the library.  We take this for granted today, but it was once a radical new idea.  My point is that libraries have never been static institutions, even though they are often portrayed that way.

Current thinking seems to be that the next big change will be a shift away from collections to expanded facilities—libraries as the community’s “third room,” or libraries as incubators, or libraries as community hubs, as places where people come together to exchange ideas, make connections, and come up with something new; hence the recent growth in public libraries that contain maker spaces, recording studios, or tool libraries.  What is clear to me though is that, whatever shape the future library takes, each library must be adapted to the community it serves.  There is no cookie cutter model for the future public library.  What works in one place may be completely inappropriate in another.  Future direction must be driven by community consultation.

The Library Board at the Collingwood Public Library is starting to collect data to write a new strategic plan for the library.  In the coming months we will be looking for your input.  What sort of library do you think Collingwood needs?  What are we doing well, and therefore shouldn’t change? And what are we not doing that you feel we should?

In the meantime, here are a couple of recent articles to peruse, giving different views of what the future library might look like. Enjoy.

What will Libraries be like in 2100? (Slate Magazine)

Reinventing the Library (The New York Times)

Keep the Library, Lose the Books (The Atlantic)

--Ken Haigh