A Guardian editorial discusses rebranding the notion of town libraries:
The town library, byword for mousy respectability and decent endeavour, is at last showing a capacity to fight to escape from a deathly decline. At a conference in Liverpool last week Roy Clare, boss of the formerly invisible Museums, Libraries and Archives Council argued for libraries’ role in lifelong learning from school to senescence, now rebranded as “Finding Your Talent”. Earlier this month the culture secretary, Andy Burnham, announced a review to consider how best to modernise libraries, hinting not merely at rebranding but also at a radical rethink of their contemporary purpose. […] There is not much time left.
I wouldn’t be who I am without the town libraries of the past–without free access to books. I grew up in an age of no online book shops, no paperbacks in the supermarket, no disposable income. There were no books in our house except library books. Everything I read, everything that formed me as a writer, came from the Leeds City Library system. It was my lifeline. I needed it. But today, surrounded by cheap notebook computers and phones that browse the web, of Wikipedia and Google and Amazon.com, do residents of industrialised nations need old-style libraries?
Today, with second-hand books available with one-click and for one dollar, I tend to use the library only for esoteric inter-library loan stuff: ordering the kind of book that costs $140 and is 90 pages long. I’d be lost without that service. For me, then, old-fashioned libraries have a meaningful, if limited, role.
What do they provide for you?
It seems to me that libraries are gateways to knowledge, where, in an ideal world, users are steered by information experts, that is, librarians to the perfect fictional and non-fictional fit. These gateways used to be brick or stone buildings with lions outside and books and silence inside. But that was then. What about now? What should a town-funded 21st century knowledge portal look like?
My library card is my most prized possession. I live in Australia and as fantastic as Amazon et al discounts are, international postage costs and exchange rates put a dent in my book budget. I still need my not-very-pretty but always helpful council library, and for books ‘to keep’, I feel as though I need to help my local independent bookstore stay afloat. Especially now.
As a librarian and a traditionalist, I think the article raises some very interesting points. Libraries do need to change and grow if they are going to survive in the 21st century, however I am saddened to think that they will become an outpost of Starbuck’s.For me the library was always a quiet sanctuary in a crazy world. I loved and still love to wander the stacks and pick books off the shelf at random. I could really get lost in the library and sometimes when I have the time I still do.Sadly, the sanctuary is long gone, cellphone conversations, ipods and assorted media devices clatter about the institution. I feel sorry for the people who work in libraries, they must feel as though they are hall monitors in an out of control high school.The technology moves us forward and allows for convenience but I feel that a great deal is lost as well. The accuracy of the information flowing across the internet is mind boggling. The indexing and order of the information is lacking but I still go online to find information. It has become a way of life. Change will come, I just hope it’s for the better.
The library is where I get books I want to try but am not sure I’ll like, books I won’t read more than once, books I can’t afford, and cookbooks. It’s where I go to browse the shelves and pick random and often delightful things–some for me, some to entertain K while she’s eating her breakfast cereal.When I go into a bookstore and want more things than I can have, I figure out which eight I’ll get from the library. I order them online, and VPL ships them to the branch down the road. I could not do without it.
I rarely use the library for personal use. But, I take my therapy dog one Saturday for the “Paws for Reading”. Kids pick out a book to read to the dog in the quiet privacy of a back room. The need to read is as great as ever. I’m heartened to see parents leaving with a great big stack of books for their kids to read at home. I am disheartened by the loud, chaotic environment. I too used my small hometown library as a getaway – that place I could go to look at any book I wanted to. I loved that it was quiet, and that quiet was expected. I’m all for anything that gets kids interested in exploring the world of words. It will look and feel different, but, that has to be okay.
I would not be in publishing today without libraries. Not only did most of the books I read come from libraries, my first real job was Assistant Librarian at a county library in the mountains of California when I was in 8th grade. That said, I worked a booth at the American Library Association convention in Anaheim this year, and saw a huge Wii display. I was told that folks now used the library as a free babysitter and the porky little kids were not much interested in reading, so to continue funding and work off some of their weight, the libraries were installing Wii’s. And they were encouraging roleplaying groups, and our booth was flooded with librarians looking for information on graphic novels. So, it is all changing, and I have not really formed an opinion. I just believe libraries are no longer what I think of when I hear that word.
A library? <>Librería<> in Spanish is where you buy books. Where I grew up in Mexico, <>biblioteca<> is the place that holds hundreds and thousands of books to be loaned out and it only exists in the stories you read in the books you buy at the <>librería<>. I hear there is one decent public library in Mexico City, but I didn’t grow up over there. It took me less than two years to go through the books in my school library, which was just a small room with some shelves and a few books. The state library didn’t allow you to check books out and was very far from where we lived. My library was my mom’s wall-to-wall shelf. Fortunately for me, she’s a book lover. The first thing she bought with her first paycheck was that huge bookshelf. She filled it with volumes on Chemistry and Physics, so I read <>The Physics of Light<> in elementary school. I read about Astronomy and also some really depressing books for a child—which I didn’t even understand, I’m sure—such as <>Anna Karenina<> (after which I was named), <>Crime and Punishment<>, etc. I suspect those reads contributed to me becoming a very gloom girl. And a geek, because she also had cool Science Fiction and Horror anthologies. Those, too, were not appropriate for kids and were published as mediocre—bordering on bad—translations. The names that lived in those short story collections were: Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan. And she collected every issue she could afford of <>National Geographic<>. That was my library. I began collecting books for my personal library as young as ten. I saved money by washing cars and doing gardens and baking muffins to sell at the school. Being able to buy a book was the reward for hard work and scholarships. Even now, when I need to understand the value of money, the only way I can do it is by asking, “How many books can I buy with that?” I travel cheap and uncomfortable because I think every hundred dollars I save that way buy me five hardcovers or seven-to-ten paperbacks. I immediately go out an purchase them, so I no longer have a one or two hundred dollars to put towards a comfortable flight with no connections. Most of my budgeting is done that way. The Vancouver Public Library is where I go to work when I can’t work at home. It’s the place I walk to when I miss touching my books, which are now kept in boxes. And also, it’s the place I loiter to get my fix of crushes on librarians and other book lovers—because my wife is none of those.To me, a 21st century knowledge portal looks exactly like Amazon. But I’ll have to go off to the thinking corner and try to envision how a First World town-funded library could evolve…
P.S. I meant inaccurate flow of information, not accurate!
karinal, so there’s no Australian amazon yet? That’s too bad. I wonder why not.rory, I really miss the random browse factor, too–it’s how I stumbeled upon all things Norwegian, how Aud was born. But branch libraries these days have fewer and fewer accessible books, and more and more terminals.alyx, the Kindle is becoming my library: I download dozens of free sample chapters, then of the very few I like, I just buy them–they are cheap (some only $3 or $4, no shipping costs). It’s an amazing device.chadao, robin, one of the things I really miss about old-fashioned libraries is the sense of sanctuary. The peace. It used to be a bit like going to a church. A temple of books. Novels, particularly, demand focus. A really good novel will reach out and grab you, hold you no matter what the distractions, but most novels just aren’t that good–but they fun to read, too. I think reading is a skill that must be practised, and libraries and quiet times at school used to be training grounds. How and where do children learn now?karina, I’ve never had a crush on a librarian. Actually–and most people find this weird–I’ve never had a crush.
nicola, wow… Never? I get crushes every 48 hours. Not even on fictional characters? Like Ayesha, maybe… My Lalaland is so squishy that crushes on characters also count, since crushes are almost always fictional even if they seem to be triggered/fostered by an actual person.
Not in the ‘puppy love’ sense, no. Not in the go-red-in-the-face-and-stammer sense, or the heart-pounds-when-I-think-of-her sense. Fictional characters like Ayesha (She) and Alia (Dune Messiah) and even Jadis (The Magician’s Nephew) were momentary role models, and I found the notion of them kind of attractive, in much the same way I found the notion of being god-emperor of the universe attractive, but I don’t think I got crushy.I was 12 when this gap in my girl-psyche became apparent. All my friends were crushing out on various teen stars and I thought they’d turned into aliens over night. It’s a phenomenon I’ve been seeking to understand since. But I just don’t get it.
Where do kids practice the reading skill now? Good question. It’s one of the unfortunate things about taking the dog once a month – the astonishment on the parents faces. Sometimes joy and sometimes horror. It would appear that many parents don’t hear their kids read aloud anymore. I’ve seen grand/parents cry because they had no idea their child could read so well. Others cry or get angry because the quality is so poor. On the other hand, the kid is so focused on trying to read to the dog to have him know what’s going on in the book that they just go for it. They turn the page so he can see it, they point to the pictures and describe it to him!! That desire (which I totally relate to) to share the world of the story still burns within them.
I really believe our small town (small) library saved my life. The books I found there helped me to escape a difficult reality. And then it opened up the world to me. Not the librarians though, I hid out from them – afraid I’d get busted for reading what seemed like subversive, racy stuff to me at the time.Then when I went away to high school, I discovered a different kind of library – the old fashioned kind with long, thick, wooden tables, and little green lights with those arched-back wooden chairs and shelves oozing knowledge. There was even a room or two with overstuffed chairs to sit and read in. I loved reading in those rooms. The main Pasadena library has a room reminiscent of that, but I rarely go. Too many people and mostly I just can’t be bothered. It doesn’t have the same feel of history either. If I get a book from there, I order it online and have it sent to the small branch closest to me.One thing they have is free computers and free wifi internet. They have DVD’s and audio books for rent; they even have digital downloads. All of that’s been around for awhile, but I think they are valuable resources still for poor people or kids who need to study away from home, out-of-town travelers, etc.The downtown LA library is massive, but sadly, I never go there. A few months ago I signed up for it so that I can access the OED online (which I heard about through your link to Lisa Gold). Not long ago they tried to cut off the budget for the LA library, but there was an outcry and it was saved this time. I love the mixture of the old and new. I hope we don’t lose that.And the crush thing – I don’t really get that either. I don’t think I’ve ever had one.
This is a very interesting conversation. I’m still thinking about libraries and crushes. <>nicola, jennifer,<> the short answer I can think of right now for you never experiencing crushes is that you are very aware. Crushing requires a high degree of self-delusion combined with selfishness. I’ll write the long answer sometime soon, but right now I’m still headachy.
I’m not sure the 21st century needs to see a huge change in what libraries are. Maybe the 22nd will. But for the moment, there are still places like Penwith, where home broadband can be hard to come by, and the library remains a central knowledge resource. Otherwise, I saw a quote the other day which I liked very much – it was in relation to the economy, actually, but it works as well here: we don’t need to see growth (or in this case, change) so much as we need development; better, more reliable and responsive systems rather than more different things available.In the context of libraries: more print-on-demand, perhaps, so that that inter-library loan you mentioned takes ten minutes instead of three days; fuller indexing, so that you can search for a given topic more powerfully; some species of accuracy filter, so that books containing outdated or known-false information can be flagged; a ‘quiet room’ where no cellphones or things which go beep are permitted, and so on.Libraries could – maybe should – occupy the slot the OED has in my life in relation to English: there’s an enormous amount of sloppy or wrong or wrong-headed information out there. A library should be where you go to get the full, useful, footnoted, useful, accurate answer. Maybe libraries should have a truthfinding service…“Excuse me, is Barack Obama really a muslim?”“No. But the question you should ask yourself is the one Colin Powell just asked: why is everyone assuming that would be bad?”“Oh, right, thanks. Now, is it true that the Large Hadron Collider is going to create a black hole and end the world?”“No. It’s vanishingly unlikely, but possible, that it might create mini black holes which would dissipate almost immediately.”“Okay, cool. Is it true that reading speculative or science fiction makes your nose drop off and gives you evil cooties of doom?”“….”
nicola, after a long rumination < HREF="http://shetranslates.com/2008/on-crushes/" REL="nofollow">on crushes<>, I can tell you that you haven’t missed anything. And that I admire you.
nick, I like your vision.karina, I’m not sure I agree with you about crushes being all bad and selfish (but see my comment on your post for more).
I don’t think everyone has a computer or eeven easy access to one. I too grew up in the library. Probably my favorite place when I was a kid. I think books will be critical to humans when we can no longer have elctricity for our electronics. I think we’re a button away from that kind of existence. It is books that will be the base of our knowledge. One of the things I would do if I had a time machine is go back to the library in Alexandria. I fantasize about the information that has been lost and what a picture of our history we could have had. duff
My love for reading came from my Grandmother. However, I do not remember books being in my home. I found those at the library. I loved my library card as it gave me a key to everything-or so I thought at the time. I read,and read, and read.As an adult at KU I remember walking up the granite steps of the campus library on my quest for a remote journal that was located “deep” within the library-literally down several flights of stairs where a book was rumored to be housed that those that read it came to no good end.(I already had it, I think it was called”Algebra II”-I’m not math brained).Nevertheless, I loved being down in the core of the library earth and thought I could actually stay there and no one would find me out for some time. I knew if a tornado came that it would be a good place of refuge,but perhaps all 27,000 of my fellow students knew that too.We have a library in my city that is colored like rancid ranchero sauce. It has bright blue and yellow “balls” sitting on the grounds. I really do NOT like going there. My new branch library is painted black and has metal/tin mini “water towers” I guess that is supposed to be “art.” Maybe so.I miss sitting in between the stacks, the silence, the smell of books,or pulling out the card catalog,but will admit that the click of a search engine is a bit of a fair trade.I love going to Half Price Books and wandering through looking for a few selected authors but always find some totally unexpected treasure. My family does not understand why I find this “relaxing.”CRUSHES: My tennis coach in HS,my government teacher HS, my co-worker when I was 18. I have, though, been very much in love with three women at the wrong time and place in the universe. Crushes? No, just plain if things were so different, the relationship could rise to a whole other level. We all knew this ,each one of them, but those are stories for another topic.
duff, What-Iffing about the survival of the Alexandria library would make a pretty interesting alternate history novel. But I doubt there’s much they knew then that we don’t know now. And pretty soon all our hand-helds will be solar powered so no worries about batteries. However, how the servers and networks will run come the apocalypse I couldn’t say.linda, oh, god I hate post-modern libraries. Hate them. I miss browsing 2nd hand bookshops but a) they trigger my allergies and b) they’re often cluttered and impossible to navigate with crutches. Mutter mutter.
BTW… I happened to find one Nicola Griffith’s The Blue Place during a literary treasure hunt. Thought it looked “interesting”, read it, and then went to the web to find more!I so agree with the lack of accessibility in the recycled bookstores. My youngest daughter cannot get around in her WC in the one that I frequent but she did find one near her that she can maneuver well. She actually found Ammonite for me.
linda, I’m really grateful to 2nd-hand b/shops; many of my readers first stumbled across my work in such places. There’s a lovely place here in Seattle, Third Place Books, that has wide aisles and good ventilation, and more and more ‘first-hand’ shops are beginning to stock used books, too, e.g. Seattle Mystery Books.If we ever do NicKelCon, both places will be on the tour.