I'd like to put forward (what seems to me a least) a somewhat novel thesis
as to the justification of the public library. I am by the way not
qualified as a librarian - a humble library assistant. The following is
also creative to say the least (my Liverpool roots, or so I'm told ;) so you
have been warned.
Straight to the point anyway, the justification of the library has to at
least in part be on the basis that the library is in a state of transition
(now is _not_ the time to abandon the library). Dewey has served us for
(approx.) 150 years, but now we are faced with a situation where Google is
indexing information at a page level. However commercial interests (as
always) are not going to serve us fully, commercial interests I would argue
are only igniting an interest in information, it is for the libraries to
fulfill that desire.
Perhaps the best way to argue my point is to say what, given current
technologies, the libraries of the future _should_ be doing (and we are
talking library 10.0 here); hence what current libraries _are_ doing (or a
part of at least) and hence what library funding is all about.
Firstly the purpose of the library, library role changes with each new
generation, and with our generation the role of the library is anything that
one person wants to communicate to another (which includes also the means to
communicate it) - a truly multimedia library[1][2]. The remit of
information[3] only is for a past age (we are quite literally, past it), the
CD collection and community art exhibition are now no longer extension
activities, but core[4].
Dewey (or other classification schemes for that matter) are not abandoned,
but subject indexes detailed and full cross referenced are now made
available to the user on a computer screen.
Browsing by class number (in Library 10.0) gives the user an experience of
browsing the shelves, even to the extent of graphically representing books
with their spine, also enabling the user to electronically glance at the
contents of a book. Which means that libraries start digitizing their
collections, _and_ paying royalties when books are electronically accessed.
There is also no need to duplicate data, with one world and one Internet,
there is also only need for one electronic library in the world - a global
co-operation.
A user can search for books by subject (ref. previous but one para.), and
can see not only current in print publications for that subject (aka Amazon)
if they choose, but all publications since medieval times on the subject.
Anyone for Brave New Library World!? I hope if not anything else to have
made the point that it is for the future that the libraries are being funded
as well as the present.
[1] "the gift that you give the artist and that the artist gives you"
Boing Boing, 17 November, 2006,
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/11/17/zadie_smith_on_the_p.html Zadie Smith
on the practice of reading
[2] "If we consider ... every human being has, by the nature of the case, a
right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of
the rights of men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man!"
LSJ, February 2007,
http://informatics.buffalo.edu/org/lsj/articles/popowich_2007_2_carlyle.php
Carlyle, Panizzi, and the Public Library Ideal
[3] Ref. http://webjunction.org/forums/message.jspa?messageID=43938#43938
[4] See http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/2007-July/108673.html
and http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/publib/2007-July/108697.html
Gareth Osler
Liverpool
Library Web Editor and Admin.
http://www.libraryweb.info/
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