Libraries as neutral community spaces

 

Very good article in last weekend’s Financial Times by Edwin Heathcote (architecture correspondent) about Birmingham’s new £188 million public library.

You’ll need to subscribe to read, but the best bits include a quote from Brian Gambles, whom I met earlier this year, that: “We need to make this a landing strip for people who may not be culturally attuned to using a public building”. However, my favourite line was from Heathcote himself, who says that: “Libraries are seen as remnants of a real public realm: they are places that belong to citizens.”

Idea of the month: Pop-up libraries

Has anyone ever done pop up public libraries? If the people are no longer going to libraries why not bring the libraries to the people? But here’s the good bit – possibly. If you had, say, a pop up library in a station, airport or supermarket you’d give people a pre-paid envelope to mail the book back to the main library.

But What is a Public Library for?

Here’s a lovely list of things that public libraries are for via Brian Gambles, who is Project Director of the new Library of Birmingham (the largest library in Europe).

Place making
Knowledge growth and transfer
Showcasing culture and learning
Celebrating creativity and innovation
Encouraging exploration and discovery
Working collaboratively and co-productively
Community engagement and empowerment

BTW, if you ever find yourself standing in front of 100+ library people in a conference don’t change your title slide at the very last minute so it reads: “A Benefits Office with Books?” Oh yes I did. It was meant to provoke but went too far.

The World’s Best Public Libraries

For the last two years I’ve been walking around with a bit of red cardboard in my glasses case. The item in question is black on the reverse and the word ‘Silence’ is inscribed in small gold letters. What is this strange thing? It’s actually a box that once contained earplugs, taken from a Virgin Atlantic flight, probably one from Sydney to London via Hong Kong.

The point of this story is that after 2 years I’ve finally looked at what’s written on the red side of the card and it’s a list of the best libraries in the world. I have no idea where this list came from, but a wild guess would be some inflight magazine or other. Anyway, here’s the list.

1) Bibliotheca, Alexandria, Egypt
2) Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (part of New York Public Library)
3) Customs House, Sydney
4) Kyoto International Manga Museum, Japan
5) Cardiff Central Library, Cardiff
6) The Royal Library, Copenhagen

Libraries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had an 11-hour flight yesterday so I managed to polish off something called the Library Book (Profile Books). It’s a collection of short essays by people that are passionate about and wish to protect public libraries, including Julian Barnes, Caitlin Moran and Seth Godin. There wasn’t anything inside that I didn’t already know about in a sense, but it was good to have some key thoughts confirmed – such as not reducing the value of a library to the sum of the books on its shelves.

The book is full of good quotes but one I especially liked is this one by Caitlin Moran:

“A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold, rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead. A human with a brain and a heart and a desire to be uplifted, rather than a consumer with a credit card and an inchoate ‘need’ for ‘stuff’.

BTW, a fun aside was that the in-flight entertainment system broke down three times and some of the passengers almost had heart attacks at the thought of eleven hours with no access to a screen. What were they supposed to do? Should have brought a book I guess.

One final thought just in via email – a great list of 10 ways we can expect libraries to change in the future. Click right here (thanks Kaitlyn).

The Manchester Scenarios

I’ve been in Manchester again (I’m now on the 18.35 to London Euston and we passed Stoke-on-Trent a while back) and I’ve been running a mini scenarios workshop on the subject of public libraries once again.

We came up against the usual issue of trying to do something worthwhile in a very short space of time, but because the participants had actually found the time to do some background reading, including reading the scenarios report from Public Libraries New South Wales, we did eventually end up somewhere quite interesting.

One of the key drivers we discussed was the extent to which library services might be provided by government vs. the free market and the other was around user need, although how need is defined and what’s driving this need does, I feel, need to be fleshed out. Overall, early days.

More to come…

In praise of public libraries – and librarians

I’m putting together some 2012 trends material, but in the meantime I thought I’d repeat the 3 most popular postings from my blog in 2011. Here’s the first one. BTW, interesting fact. The 3 most popular posts have all been quite long. So much for short attention spans!

There was a report in a newspaper a while ago about a mother whose six-year-old had asked her whether he should put a slice of bread in the toaster “landscape or portrait?” I mentioned this to my ten-year-old son and he said: “He should have Googled it.”

I mention this because I am interested in how spaces and places change how we think. In particular I am interested in how new digital objects and environments are starting to change age-old attitudes and behaviours, including how we relate to one another.

And this directly leads me to a very particular place, namely public libraries and the question of whether or not they have a future. In short, what is the role – or value- of public libraries and public librarians in an age of e-books and Google?

Now at this point I have to put my hand up and admit to being wrong. Some time ago I created an extinction timeline, because I believe that the future is as much about things we’re familiar with disappearing as it is about new things being invented. And, of course, I put libraries on the extinction timeline because, in an age of e-books and Google who needs them.

Big mistake. Especially when one day you make a presentation to a room full of librarians and show them the extinction timeline. I got roughly the same reaction as I got from a Belgian after he noticed that I’d put his country down as expired by 2025.

Fortunately most librarians have a sense of humour, as well as keen eyesight, so I ended up developing some scenarios for the future of public libraries and I now repent. I got it totally wrong. Probably.

Whether or not we will want libraries in the future I cannot say, but I can categorically state we will need them, because libraries aren’t just about the books they contain. Moreover, it is a big mistake, in my view, to confuse the future of books or publishing with the future of public libraries. They are not the same thing.

Let’s start by considering what a public library is for. Traditionally the answer would have been a place to borrow books. This is where the argument that libraries are now dying or will soon be dead originates. After all, if you can download any book in 60-seconds, buy cheap books from a supermarket or instantly search for any fact, image or utterance on Google why bother with a dusty local library?

I’d say the answer to this is that public libraries are important because of a word that’s been largely ignored or forgotten and that word is Public. Public libraries are about more than mere facts, information or ‘content’. Public libraries are places where local people and ideas come together. They are spaces, local gathering places, where people exchange knowledge, wisdom, insight and, most importantly of all, human dignity.

A good local library is not just about borrowing books or storing physical artefacts. It is where individuals become card-carrying members of a local community. They are places where people give as well as receive. Public libraries are keystones delivering the building blocks of social cohesion, especially for the very young and the very old. They are where individuals come to sit quietly and think, free from the distractions of our digital age. They are where people come to ask for help in finding things, especially themselves. And the fact that they largely do this for nothing is nothing short of a miracle.

It is interesting to me that so much is made of the fact that most things on the internet are free. Indeed whole books have been written on the subject of this radical new price. But the idea of free information is nothing new and when free public libraries were invented the idea was even more radical because of the high cost of books.

Of course, there is the argument that virtualisation means that we will no longer need public libraries – or that if they continue to exist their services will be tailored to the individual and they will be capable of instantly sending whatever it is that we, as individuals, want direct to the digital device of our choosing. And perhaps some libraries will do this for a fee rather than for free.

Costly mistake. This would be a huge error in my view, partly because what people want is not always the same as what they need and partly because this focuses purely on the information at the expense of overall learning and experience.

Some people have argued that content is now king and that the vessel that houses information is irrelevant. I disagree. I believe that how information is delivered influences the message and is, in some instances, more meaningful than the message.

As I’ve already said, libraries are about people, not just books, and librarians are about more than just saying “Shhh.” They are also about saying: “Psst – have a look at this.” They are sifters, guides and co-creators of human connection. Most of all they are cultural curators, not of paper, but of human history and ideas.

In a world cluttered with too much instant opinion and we need good librarians more than ever. Not just to find a popular book, but to recommend an obscure or original one. Not only to find events but to invent them. The internet can do this too, of course, but it can’t look you in the eye and smile gently whilst it does it. And in a world that’s becoming faster, noisier, more virtual and more connected, I think we need the slowness, quietness, physical presence and disconnection that libraries provide, even if all we end up doing in one is using a free computer.

Public libraries are about access and equality. They are open to all and do not judge a book by its cover any more than they judge a readers worth by the clothes they wear. They are one of the few free public spaces that we have left and they are among the most valuable, sometimes because of the things they contain, but more usually because of what they don’t.

Of course, we could put a Starbucks into every library – and we could allow mobile phone use and piped music throughout too – but then surely what we will be left with are more global outposts of Starbucks not local libraries.

What libraries do contain, and should continue to contain in my view, includes mother and toddler reading groups, computer classes for seniors, language lessons for recently arrived immigrants, family history workshops and shelter for the homeless and the abused. Equally, libraries should continue to work alongside local schools, local prisons and local hospitals and provide access to a wide range of e-services, especially for people with mental or physical disabilities.

In short, if libraries cease to exist, we will have to re-invent them.
Now, admittedly many younger people still see no need to visit a library. Many, if not most, will not have done so in years. But this could be because they still see libraries as spaces full of old books rather than places full of new ideas.But this may change.

In my view it is inevitable that the ongoing digitalisation of culture will lead to an ever-greater integration of cultural institutions and public libraries will shift from being book places to places that curate our cultural and intellectual heritage. Libraries will thus become memory institution like art galleries and museums. Indeed, why not physically combine all three?

This, of course, means that the role of librarians will change. The idea of professional librarianship will fade and in its place will emerge the idea of professional informational and cultural curators and this will embrace a variety of different skills.

But let’s bring it back to why the physical space that libraries occupy is so important. Again, libraries are not important because they contain books per se. They are, in my view, important because of how a place full of books make people feel. Great libraries, like all great buildings, change how you feel and this, in turn, changes how you think.

So what’s my idea here? Two thoughts. The first is that we should accept that a library without books would still a library because it would continue to be an important community resource – a neutral public space – where serendipitous encounters with people and ideas take place. This, surely, is an idea worth spreading.

My second idea is that we should consider funding libraries in new and novel ways. This could mean libraries going back to their philanthropic roots and asking wealthy individuals to buy or build libraries rather than football clubs or art galleries. Or it could mean getting governments to impose taxes on certain leisure pursuits that are known to provide no mental nourishment or social cohesion and use the revenue generated to subsidise other, more useful, things like public libraries or good books.

There is a considerable amount of discussion at the moment about obesity. The idea that we should watch what we eat or we will end up prematurely dead. But where is the debate about the quality of what and where we read or write? Surely what we put inside our heads – where we create or consume information – is just as important as what we put inside our mouths.

Libaries – a case for renewal

I met Dr Wendy Schultz a few days ago at a horizon scanning symposium at the MOD. She’s just sent me this, which I rather like. Please note: She wrote this NOT me, so all credit where it’s due. Note I’d added sources to comments.

Sunset Strategies for Library 2.0: a provocation.
Dr. Wendy L. Schultz, Infinite Futures, March 2006

This too shall pass: The ongoing Library 2.0 debate (1) frames library renewal within the current trends transforming our information infrastructure. But those trends themselves will evolve, even mutate, under pressure from emerging change. A futures perspective asks us to reconnect this dialogue to the grand sweep of time from the treasured past to the adventure of the future – and to put people and meaning at the center of our concerns.

What are libraries? Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange. Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities: they preserve and promote community memories; they provide mentors not only for the exploration of stored memory, but also for the creation of new artifacts of memory. What was the library of the past? A symbol of a society that cared about its attainments, that treasured ideas, that looked ahead multiple generations. Librarians were stewards, educators, intimate with the knowledge base and the minds who produced it. Librarians today are not just inventory management biobots: they are people with a unique understanding of the documents they compile and catalog, and the relationships among those documents.

Let’s borrow a page from analysts charting shifts in our economy’s “chain of meaning” (2). They see a rising ladder of value progressing from commodity to product to service to experience: e.g., from selling coffee beans to selling Maxwell House to serving coffee at Dunkin Donuts to providing an exotic Starbucks’ coffee permutation in its chattering, WiFi, jazz café atmosphere. How does that progression look superimposed on the Library 2.0 debate, with additions both from history and emerging issues of change?

Library 1.0: Commodity
The library from Alexandria to the industrial era: Books are commodities, collected, inventoried, categorised and warehoused within libraries. Libraries represent a resource base, contributing to educating the labour force, to supporting innovation processes fueling growth, and to informing the present and the future – whether in the neighborhood, in academia, or in business.

Library 2.0: Product
How should the library package its commodity – books – as products in an environment that disintermediates, dematerialises, and decentralises? Chad and Miller’s essay, and the debates and conversations around it, raise this question and answer it with the characteristics of our emerging information infrastructure: the library is everywhere, barrier-free, and participatory. Collaborate with Amazon; provide digital downloads of books; create a global, and globally accessible, catalog; invite readers to tag and comment. Yet as more information becomes more accessible, people will still need experienced tour guides – Amazon’s customer recommendations are notoriously open to manipulation; tagclouds offer diverse connections, not focussed expertise. This will drive the transition to Library 3.0: the 3D service.

Library 3.0 – Web 3D to Library 3D: Service.
There are SecondLife (3) subscribers who spend more than forty hours a week online, immersed in its virtual graphic world. Digital natives take 2.0 for granted; they are buzzing over Web 3D. Carrying Chad and Miller’s argument through this next phase transition, we arrive at virtual collections in the 3D world, where books themselves may have avatars and online personalities. But the avalanche of material available will put a premium on service, on tailoring information to needs, and on developing participatory relationships with customers. So while books may get in your 3D face all by themselves, people will prefer personal introductions – they will want a VR info coach. Who’s the best librarian avatar? How many Amazon stars has your avatar collected from satisfied customers? This could create librarian “superstars” based on buzz and customer ratings. People will collect librarians rather than books – the ability not just to organise, but also to annotate and compare books and other information sources, from a variety of useful perspectives.

With Library 3D, we have strayed far into virtual reality in the flight from bricks and mortar into software. Yet many businesses are demonstrating that storefronts can still draw customers, if they offer a compelling experience: a clearly defined environment that is authentic (true and good); humane (emotional, irrational); experiential (designed, theatrical); impassioned; relevant (understandable, timely); and participatory (open, lived, shared). (4) What would Library 4.0 be like? It will completely connect the digital and the sensual, moving from virtual reality (VR) to augmented reality (AR): all the services of Library 3D projected over our immediate surroundings.

Library 4.0, the neo-library: Experience.
This will be the library for the aesthetic economy, the dream society, which will need libraries as mind gyms; libraries as idea labs; libraries as art salons. But let’s be clear: Library 4.0 will not replace Libraries 1.0 through 3.0; it will absorb them. The library as aesthetic experience will have space for all the library’s incarnations: storage (archives, treasures); data retrieval (networks – reference rooms); and commentary and annotation (salon). Available as physical places in the library “storefront,” they will also be mobile, as AR overlays we can view (via glasses, contacts, projections) anywhere. Both virtual and augmented 3D reality will enable us to manipulate data via immersive, visual, metaphorical, sculptural, holographic information theatres: the research and analytic experience will merge with drawing, dance, and drama.

But Library 4.0 will add a new mode, knowledge spa: meditation, relaxation, immersion in a luxury of ideas and thought. In companies, this may take the form of retreat space for thought leaders, considered an investment in innovation; in public libraries, the luxurious details will require private partners as sponsors providing the sensory treats. Library 4.0 revives the old image of a country house library, and renovates it: from a retreat, a sanctuary, a pampered experience with information – subtle thoughts, fine words, exquisite brandy, smooth coffee, aromatic cigar, smell of leather, rustle of pages – to the dream economy’s library, the LIBRARY: a WiFREE space, a retreat from technohustle, with comfortable chairs, quiet, good light, coffee and single malt. You know, the library.(5)

I’ll meet you there.