Author: Robin

The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.

This! What Seth Godin sees as the future of libraries is very similar to what I see. It’s not the container of information we should be worried about – it’s the information itself. If it comes in e-book format or through an online database or via a very old, very delicate manuscript, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that people (our patrons) can access that information and the knowledge and skills to wrangle it (in the form of a librarian, of course). I’ve written before about making the library co-working friendly and have long advocated for more and better technology to be put in place for our patrons so that they can “coordinate and invent projects woth working on together”. I’ve been pushing collaboration between librarians, patrons and the library and between patrons themselves for years! I can’t say that I agree with everything that Seth said in his post – it seems like his reference to a librarian helping someone use a soldering iron is a nod toward the recent article in Make about libraries being tool shops. I’m not so sure about that one… The idea that libraries should provide a community space that is full of information – in whatever form it takes – is one I’ve been advocating for a while and I’m very glad to see others thinking the same way.

Besides having one of the best blog titles EVAR, In the Library with a Lead Pipe also has some of the most thought-provoking, long-form blog posts out there. In the post made on Wednesday the 20th, What Are Libraries For?, guest author Hugh McGuire says:

I’d like to propose a loose definition of what libraries are for, which comes out of something of a trope: that the central problem for big institutions when the environment around them is changing (as it is for libraries with the arrival of ebooks) is that they falsely assume that how they do things defines why they exist. In fact, the inverse relationship should dominate what they do: why they exist should define how they do things. Put another way, institutions must understand what they are for in order to properly understand how they should be, especially when the foundations upon which they were built are changing.

The rest of the post discusses the eventual overtaking of adult casual reading by ebooks and the difficulties libraries, at least those that define themselves as “the place to get books” will face when that happens. This made me look over at my wall where I’ve posted a large-print version of my library’s mission statement. It is as follows:

The mission of the Missouri River Regional Library is to make available to the residents of Cole and Osage Counties a diverse collection of human wisdom, experience, and ideas. The library makes accessible and promotes the use of informative and creative resources and cultural programs by which people of all ages, abilities, and circumstances can pursue their educational, professional and recreational interests.

(the red color is my addition; I wanted to highlight the verbs – the stuff I need to remember when I’m posting new information on the blog and other social sites)
I’d like to point out that this mission statement never uses the words book or magazine. The point of my library is to provide information in whatever format or style happens to be available. If ebooks are the dominant form, we’ll provide access to ebooks – however we can do it. If holographic lectures overtake journal articles as a way to provide information to our patrons, we’ll make it happen. The message that libraries will be irrelevant when print becomes a less dominant format is just wrong. Libraries will adjust, adapt and come out swinging – mostly because the people that make up libraries (the librarians, staff and those dedicated patrons who support us) will continue to provide access to information. Period.

Blake Carver, that collector of domain names, has found a use for yet another LIS domain – LISEvents.com. This site features Libraryland conferences and other events – and has a section for people who organize conferences to find speakers (yours truly included, of course). If you want to find an event or a speaker for your event, this is the place to look! If you want to follow all the added events, you can follow the LISEvents twitter feed, too.