Occupy Wall Street Library

For the past month or so, I've been following news about the Occupy Wall Street Library The existence of the library fascinates me because of the way the OWS library exemplifies the model of libraries adapting to serve the needs of their specific community while existing in a non-traditional setting outside many people's expectations. Most people think of libraries as buildings; this library shows you don't need one.  While in Zuccotti park, the library contained over 5,000 books, with a reference section and an exchange section.  This included a number of books on economic and political theory, important resources for protesters.  The library had laptops for members to use.  It's even started to become a maker's space. 

As many of you know, most of the OWS library was destroyed last week, including most of the books and all of the laptops.  The destruction of the library's materials is tragic and heinous.  But the library has already started rebuilding.  The Occupy Library can be taken as an example of libraries' resilience in the face of adversity.

Week 10

Last week two public librarians, Eli Neiburger and Meg Backus, spoke to our class.  Hearing about what's currently going on in their libraries and what they think about the future of public libraries was extremely informative.

Two things that Eli said have stuck with me this week.  The first was that the libraries "can't be all things for all people but have to be something for everybody."  Public libraries are facing diminishing resources and budgets so it's important to apply this sort of utilitarian approach to decision making.  The other thing that stuck with me was the idea that librarians need to create unique value to stay relevant.  An example of this was gaming in libraries.  It's not enough to provide video games for library members to check out.  The social experience of playing games and competing with other people is something that libraries can add.  This got me thinking about other ways librarians can bring things of unique value to the community.  Meg Backus's idea of having people check out her therapy dog for twenty minutes is a good example.  Learning Commons are another way of providing unique value, particularly in academic libraries.  Providing spaces for students to meet and work is necessary.  A challenge for libraries will be to get members to recognize that the services and space that librarians provide are more valuable than the stuff.

Reference Librarian Interview

This week I interviewed Kelly Delevan at the Noreen Falcone Library at Le Moyne College for IST 605.  I've been lucky in both of my librarian interviews (the first for 511) to talk to people who love their jobs, are enthusiastic about the future, and who are encouraging in terms of getting the MLS degree.  I know not everyone has had great experiences with their interviews, but both have left me feeling pretty optimistic.

It was interesting to hear about what the library has done for outreach to get more students into the library.  This year, they started assigning every freshman a librarian.  During orientation, freshmen met with their librarians, who told them about the library's services and taught them to use the library website.  The librarians are still contacts for students if they need anything during the school year.  According to Kelly, the use of the school's reference services has increased significantly since this program started.  I think this is a really great idea to get students more comfortable with using the library.  When I was at college, I didn't use the reference services much because I knew very little about them.  If I had had an assigned librarian, I would have used more of the services rather than trying to figure things out by myself.  I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement the program at larger schools (Le Moyne has about 2400 undergraduate students, which I imagine makes things easier), but outreach can make a difference for academic libraries.

Week 8

This week we took a tour of Bird Library and visited the preservation lab and special collections.  This was interesting for me since I'm interested in preservation, and my inner English major always geeks out at old, rare books.  Preserving the circulating collection involves gluing loose pages, fixing bindings, and even shrink wrapping books that aren't used often.  Shrink wrapping books is a good example of something the library does to keep its budget balanced.  The books that are shrink wrapped are "low-use" books (one hadn't been checked out in over twenty years).  Because they are used so rarely, it is not worth it for the library to replace or fully repair them.  Shrink wrapping the books keeps their quality from degenerating and allows them to remain in the collection if they do need to be used.  Preserving the special collections is more painstaking and complicated.  It was interesting to see the differences in techniques for the new circulating books and the older books in the special collections.  It was also great to see the special collection itself (or parts of it, anyway).  I was interested in the ways that the items in the special collection are evaluated.  History is looked at; for example, the writing on the papyrus scripts wasn't as significant as the fact that the paper was 2000 years old.  The special collections curators also look at association (who previously owned an item), edition, and rarity.  Some books are considered works of art not just because of content because of how they are made, like the holocaust diaries with plaster arms and the book with gems in the cover.

Communities

This week in class we discussed communities, and the way librarians should adjust their services to best serve their own communities.  This topic is really interesting to me because I used to work at a public library that acts as a good example of responding to the community's wants and needs.  When I started working, the library was pretty small, and space was becoming an issue.  There wasn't enough shelf space for the expanding collection, and there wasn't enough community space for the amount of programs desired and the number of people who wanted to attend those programs.  Because of this, the librarians started working on plans for a renovation.  In order to get the renovation approved, the library had to get enough signatures to put an addendum to the county budget up for a vote, which then had to be voted on by the majority of the voters in the county during the county election.  While collecting signatures, we gave out a lot of surveys to find out what people wanted from the library- whether that be more books, more spaces for reading and studying, more community spaces, or even a cafe.  Eventually the budget did get approved (our timing was lucky, as the vote happened before the recession really hit).  The library is now twice as big as it used to be with expanded services.

I think that the surveys helped get the renovation plans approved.  By finding out what the community wanted, the librarians made people feel more invested in the library's development.  Library members were more likely to vote in favor of the budget increase because they knew that what they wanted was being taken into account.  The results of the survey are definitely reflected in the changes to the library.  During renovation, larger community spaces were added and programming has increased a lot.  The children's space is more interactive, and more quiet areas and computers have been added.

QR code madness

This week in IST 605 we learned about QR codes and talked about how they might be applied in libraries.  My favorite suggestion was putting QR codes that could link to suggestions for other books.  Using QR codes in libraries to give members information is a really cool idea.  I think the biggest issue is access.  To read QR codes, you need a smartphone, which not everyone has.  This will probably be less of an issue as smartphones become more prevalent.  Yet it's important for librarians to consider their communities:  If a significant portion of your members can't access a service, does it make sense to provide that service?  I think it helps to look at the mission:  "The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities."*  QR codes could be part of facilitating knowledge creation by pointing members to pathfinders or other information resources.  I think it comes down to community.  Librarians need to evaluate whether or not QR codes are right for their library members and make sure that members without access to smartphones can get information through other sources.

*Lankes, R. (2011). The atlas of new librarianship. MIT Press.

Libraries and Books

One of the things I found interesting in Eli Nieburger's video, "Why Libraries are Screwed" was the idea that libraries are marketed and identified as book places.  We had a similar discussion in my 605 class after a few students attended an un-conference at which one panelist suggested that librarians should stay focused on books.  His argument was that without books, people won't be able to identify libraries.

Personal anecdote time: A friend of mine recently moved and posted a picture of her new city's impressive library on my facebook.

Awesome aquarium is awesome.

It wasn't long before someone commented, saying "But where are the books?"

And therein lies the problem.  As library students, we've read and talked all about how there's more to libraries than books.  However most people still associate libraries with physical books, which is going to be a problem if physical books become outmoded by ebooks.  So we've established in class that libraries don't need books to survive.  The next challenge is to convince everyone else.  I'm not actually sure what the best way to do that is.  Advertising and PR departments may be able to do this, but it will probably take more than that.  It's important that people stop seeing libraries as book repositories if libraries are going to survive.