Libraries in a Time of Plenty
By Joseph Janes
American Libraries Columnist
Assistant Professor, Information School, University of Washington.
intlib@ischool.washington.edu
Column for November 2006
Don’t be misled by the title of this month’s column. I don’t have a new crystal ball or a magical version of Google that can tell the future (though how far away can such a screenplay be?); if I did, I’d use it first to see when the Mariners might have another winning season (sigh).
Sadly, the “plenty” I’m thinking of here isn’t in terms of resources used to support or staff a library, but rather in terms of resources at hand for people to satisfy their information needs. You don’t need me to tell you that those have expanded exponentially in the last decade—so much so that libraries are increasingly marginalized in the popular mindset. So I won’t.
I will, however, as a public service, offer the following ripostes to those now-stereotypical questions: “What do we need libraries for? Isn’t everything on the internet?” (Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, don’t take with alcohol, ask your doctor if these are right for you, blah, etc.)
■ It isn’t all on the internet. The pervasiveness of web-based interfaces to just about everything can and has easily led people to assume that all of it—library catalogs, licensed databases, electronic journals, and the other really expensive stuff we pay those big bucks for—is on “the internet.” This creates an opportunity to discuss those treasures that lurk in hidden, privileged corners of your institutions that people would gawk at, and use, if only they knew they existed.
■ Even if it was, you couldn’t get at it. First of all, many sites have access restrictions, password barriers, registration requirements, and so on. Secondly, even the “free” Web is impossible to search in its entirety. All search engines are able to cover only a fraction of the number of sites on the Web, and thus all searches are inherently incomplete. And whatever happened to metasearching, anyway?
■ Librarians are very cool. OK, this one may take some convincing. Think about it, though: We are people in and of the communities we serve. We explore new technologies and tell stories and assist in research and preserve resources for generations yet unconceived. And we do it all in an efficient and cost-effective way, providing a large net benefit to those who pay the bills. Hey—any profession that cheerfully embraces Nancy Pearl and Karen Schneider is clearly something to be reckoned with.
■ A sense of place matters, everywhere. Library buildings have been community gathering points for generations, and library websites now serve related, though different, functions. And in an inherently placeless place, a sense of coherence and, well, place, can be really important; the word “library” still carries great power and orientation, and we can continue to play and build on that.
■ Libraries are about more than “information” anyway. In addition to place, we foster a sense of community for our clientele, we advocate and fight for their right to read and view and think what they please, we have strong legal and ethical protections for the privacy of their interests, we encourage reading and entertainment and even fun, as well as a sense of hope, shame, and awe at the human condition.
In fact, these last two points taken together provide, to me, the most forceful argument for the future viability and flourishing of libraries. Quite beyond the stereotypes, libraries are not only a refl ection of their communities, they are ways for those communities to be more—more of what they can and want to be.
Here’s the kicker. It may seem, to laypeople and to ourselves, that what we do is catalog books and answer questions and provide public e-mail access and run summer reading programs. We do. But those are all in service of the greater, deeper mission.
■ We make humanity more human. We are one of the professions that organize, preserve, protect, and make available the human record in all its myriad forms, so that it can be consulted and remembered and passed down to those who will follow us, in the hope that we can do better next time. There is no finer or nobler mission among the professions, and it’s one we should cherish and fight for, today and tomorrow.
On second thought, maybe you should take these with alcohol: A few drunken bar brawls involving librarians over the future of information might do a lot for the professional image and help us out in the long run . . . but that’s another story.
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