Dangerously irrelevant libraries

My friend Scott McLeod at the Dangerously Irrelevant blog posts a list of hard questions about books, libraries and librarians in "10 questions about books, librarians, and schools." He's been using these questions as the foundation of some (very good) keynotes given at library conferences, including one here in Minnesota.

Now I don't normally cut and past large blocks of other folks' blog posts, but I'm going to do so now. His full post ought to be read, however.

Two things: First it's incredibly important we have people like Scott from outside our profession giving us attention and asking us to think. (Gary Harzell has done a great favor to us this way in the past - and continues to do so.) We tend to be a professional echo chamber in our journals, blogs and conferences. That critical eye from the non-librarian can be one of our best learning tools, albeit sometimes an uncomfortable one to use.

Second, how we respond to folks like Scott says a lot about us. Can we explain our values and mission and realities without sounding defensive, self-serving or reactionary? Read the responses to Scott's post, put on your classroom teacher, principal, or parent hat and evaluate!

Random questions

1. What constitutes a “book” these days? When books become electronic and thus become searchable, hyperlinkable, more accessible to readers with disabilities, and able to embed audio, video, and interactive maps and graphics, at what point do they stop becoming “books” and start becoming something else?
2. The Amazon Kindle e-reader currently allows you to annotate an electronic book passage with highlights and your own personal notes. Those annotations are even available to you on the Web, not just on the Kindle device itself. As Seth Godin notes, there hopefully will be a day when you will be able to share those notes with others. You’ll also be able to push a button on your e-reader and see everyone else’s notes and highlights on the same passage. What kind of new learning capabilities will that enable for us?
3. If students and teachers now can be active content creators and producers, not just passive information recipients, doesn’t that redefine our entire notion of what it means to be information literate and media fluent? Are our librarians and classroom teachers doing enough to help students master these new literacies (for example, by focusing on student content creation, not just information consumption and/or interpretation)?
4. The Cushing Academy boarding school in Massachusetts may be the first school in the country to have its library go completely electronic. In addition to using library computers, students now check out Kindles loaded with books. How tough would it be for other schools to move to this model (and what would they gain or lose as a result)?
5. When books, magazines, newspapers, reference materials, music, movies, and other traditional library content all go electronic and online - deliverable on demand - what does that mean for the future of the physical spaces known as “libraries?” Mike Eisenberg said to me that we already should be taking yellow caution tape and blocking off the entire non-fiction and reference sections of our libraries. As content becomes digital and no longer needs to be stored on a shelf, with what do we replace that now-unused floor space: couches, tables, and cozy chairs? computer stations? meeting space? And if we head in these directions, what will distinguish libraries from other institutions such as coffee shops, community centers, and Internet cafes?
6. Our information landscape is more complex than ever before. We still need people who know how to effectively navigate these intricate electronic environments and who can teach others to do so. But does that mean we still need “librarians” who work in “libraries?” Or will their jobs morph into something else?
7. How much of a librarian’s current job could be done by someone in a different location (for example, someone in India who answers questions via telephone or synchronous chat) or by computer software and/or an electronic kiosk? I don’t know the answer to this question - and I suspect that it will vary by librarian - but I do know that many individuals in other industries have been quite dismayed to find that large portions of their supposedly-indispensable jobs can be outsourced or replaced by software (which, of course, means that fewer people are needed locally to do whatever work requires the face-to-face presence of a live human being).
8. Can a librarian recommend books better than online user communities and/or database-driven book recommendation engines? For example, can a librarian’s ability to recommend reading of interest surpass that of a database like Amazon’s that aggregates purchasing behavior or a dedicated user community that is passionate about (and maybe rates/reviews) science fiction books, and then do so for romance, political history, manga, self-help, and every other possible niche of literature too?
9. If school librarians aren’t actively and explicitly modeling powerful uses of digital technologies and social media themselves and also supporting students to do the same, should they get to keep their jobs? And if they are doing so individually (which is what we want), what’s their responsibility to police the profession (and lean on those librarians who aren’t)?
10. There is no conceivable future in which the primacy of printed text is not superceded by electronic text and media. If that future is not too far away (and may already be here), are administrators doing enough to transition their schools, libraries, and librarians / media specialists into a new paradigm?

Comments

[Lindsay]

Great discussion! I especially like how Doug added the following sentiment: "...how we respond to folks like Scott says a lot about us. Can we explain our values and mission and realities without sounding defensive, self-serving or reactionary?" I know I am still learning how to respond in a professional and informative manner without letting my emotions get the best of me.

That being said, Michael Doyle's response was the comment I got the most out of. I also agree that #10 ("There is no conceivable future in which the primacy of printed text is not superceded by electronic text and media.") is probably how most non-librarians see it. I really hope print resources are not trumped entirely by electronic resources. Most of the electronic resources that have any clout are originally from print resources anyway, for example, scholarly articles, newspapers, government publications. In my opinion, information literacy needs to be taught much more thoroughly in schools and libraries. Even if print resources were overtaken by electronic resources in the future, people won't have the safety net of knowing a source is accurate and authoritative because they will be missing the process that a publishing house preforms, fact-checking and verifying. Will there be a verifying process like this for the Web someday?

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Lindsay,

Thanks for the comment. Glad you enjoyed the discussion.

I wish we'd spend less time worrying about format (print or electronic) and more about content - it's validity, usefulness etc. Seems that material on the printed page or on a Kindle is more alike than different!

All the best,

Doug