"...where librarians went wrong is simple. We have failed to agree a simple message that encapsulates the complexity and value of the universal library offering to society. Lacking that simplicity of concept, we have failed to promote what we do."
Elspeth Hyams
KPMG proposes to reward success - but who is paying for failure?
http://tinyurl.com/358xb45
An issue worthy of LIS-PUB-LIBS.
I don't think the libraries have failed, I think there is maybe an imperative nowadays that there hasn't been so much in the past - inexpensive books, the Internet, both undermine the traditional role of the library (books and advisory). Relevance in a modern age is not the same as it was 20 years ago. For popular libraries, they could still be of even more value to their patrons moving into the modern age. Libraries losing their readers need to as a matter of urgency reconsider the context. Either way the role of libraries has changed. From a situation where reading was only ever to be found in libraries and bookshops and bookclubs and the newsagent, we now have a very different situation. To compound matters the question is now being asked do we still need libraries [are library staff avoiding this, if they are they are not doing themselves any favours]. Libraries were once a simple concept, but not nowadays, so some thinking is needed.
Open any book on the subject of books and reading and literature and the values will pour out. Which doesn't help our our quest for a 'simplicity of concept'. I'm sure it could be done though. It would take a bit of work, and it would be a large work, but the ideas we have on the value of the library I'm sure could be synthesized out into a simpler message and concept.
Anyway, to venture fourth my own version of a "a simple message that encapsulates the complexity and value of the universal library offering to society", originally a comment to another of Elspeth's posts, http://tinyurl.com/2ufbzvp - largely off the top of my head, only really a theory, but might start the ball rolling:
"Just my own thoughts on this, but the Libraries should be aiming for the support of the public by saying that they have set themselves the task of advising the public on the very best that the libraries can offer them, explaining to the public and politicians that the libraries are currently at a crossroads in shedding the skin of the past, the historical baggage that is now not relevant, with the potential to raise the culture of our communities by orders of maginitude through the new technologies now available to us, but also as the libraries' understanding of itself both as an organisation and as an institution of society continues to advance. If the government makes its vision clear the libraries must then be prepared to define the exact outcomes it will provide and the details (and I mean detail) of how these outcomes will be attained (a mission statement). I think both the public and politicians sense the inate power of the libraries, and the libraries should in return assure the public the '"best people in their fields" from inside and outside government' are leading the libraries.
I believe this is possible. The libraries and culture, the ideas and activities of a people, are a key component in the engine of a civilisation, raising ourselves up that ladder on which and as we get higher peoples' needs are increasingly met. Bob McKee points out that any changes in society start at the level of the individual, and libraries work very much at the level of the community and individual. Tim Coates points out that a key to the success of a library is stocking the books the community wants -- so libraries then say to people and in a very personal way, what knowledge, information, stories!, do you value and want. These are the values and the needs of the communiy and the individuals in that community. In this way a library raises the culture of a community. I think it is also intrinsic that the public will expect the senior library managers to be their experts on the ground in the value of the libraries.
The following is an article not a million miles away from the subject in the news yesterday:
New York Public Library Director Paul LeClerc Testifies at NY City Hall Re: NYPL Budget Cuts
http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/06/04/new-york-public-library-director-paul-leclerc-testifies-at-ny-city-hall-re-nypl-budget-cuts/ "
Gareth Osler
Library Web
http://libraryweb.info
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