I
recently had the good fortune to attend the annual Ontario Library Association
conference in Toronto. The keynote
speaker was R. David Lankes, a professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies and
one of the most frequently-cited thinkers on modern library service. Lankes stated that innovation was essential
to library survival. There was no longer any room for “worker bees” in the library
world. He warned that if we didn’t take leadership for innovation into our own
hands and create homegrown ideas, then innovation would be imposed from
without, by governments looking to cut services or by technology giants looking
to control information services. He is an advocate of community-led libraries,
where direction is taken from informed citizens. What services do your communities want you to
provide? asks Lankes. (Lankes is famous for saying, “Bad libraries build
collections; good libraries build services.”).
There
were some surprising local initiatives on display at the conference. Edmonton Public Library, for example, has
created a website for streaming locally-made popular music, called Capital City
Records, which is curated by the local music community. Libraries in Denmark are now being run, in-part or in-full, by self-service, with no staff!
One
topic that came up again and again was that many public libraries were
developing services for the homeless and the marginalized, for the simple
reason that the public library has become the de-facto shelter for so many
people in reduced circumstances. John
Pateman, the CEO of the Thunder Bay Public Library, noted that the presence of
so many homeless people in the public library could be disconcerting to the
traditional middle class library user, but he emphasized that, if we are to
provide equitable service to all sectors of our community, some discomfort
would be necessary. He quoted Jean Vanier,
stating, “To comfort the afflicted you have to afflict the comfortable.” Comfort
is the enemy of good library service. "We've always done it this way" is no longer good enough.
On
the other hand, the bloom seems to be off the rose for library makerspaces. Lankes noted a recent Salon.com article that reported:
According to a survey conducted by Maker Media,
8 out of 10 Makers are male. Their median age is 44. Their average household
income is $106,000. Nearly 83 percent are employed, and 31 percent have job
descriptions that fall into scientific or engineering categories. 97 percent
are college graduates and 80 percent have some post-graduate education.
In
other words, makerspaces are preaching to the choir and not addressing the
needs of the underprivileged. A 3-D
printer, said Lankes, isn’t really an answer to anything.
--Ken
Haigh
