When is a library not a library?

For those of you who came in late, here's a taste of the brimstone Elmo has been dishing out lately:

"Libraries have had their day. They will not survive."

In a sense, Elmo's prophecy is already coming true. If you look around my Library, probably about a third of the 'patrons' are using free internet, mostly for amusement or time-killing, another third are de-campused students using us as a study hall, and perhaps another third are what you might consider 'traditional' library patrons. It has been increasingly clear to me over the last ten years that the decline in 'serious' patrons over-the-counter is due simply to the fact that these people (the ones with opposable thumbs) can increasingly get what they want via the internet, and through self-ordering from our online catalogue. Leaving desk staff to mop up what's left.

I'm the first to admit that, past a certain point, which we have almost certainly already reached, it's the patrons who define what the institution is*. And I'm not always pessimistic about this. Just as the baths were the civic hub in cities of the Roman world, there is no reason why libraries might not bid to become something similar today. My main concern, however, is that, having begun my present working life as a research librarian, I might be finishing it as a cabana boy.

*Though I'm reminded of the good old story about the crusty university lecturer who began in the era of men-only campuses, and would begin every lecture with the salutation "Gentlemen..." Over the years, women were admitted, but he still began each lecture with "Gentlemen..." One day, it reached the point where only a single man was enrolled in his subject, the rest of the students being women. He began the lecture: "Sir..."

St. Elmo's fire

Firstly, a blushing vote of thanks for Elmo's kind words in comments to my previous post. Needless to say, I have enjoyed Elmo's blog: entertaining and thought-provoking.

But that's not all he had to say: do check it out, but make sure you're wearing asbestos gloves, and that you have a fire blanket handy for your PC. Elmo is blazing!

(I was going to urge Elmo to copyright the expression 'Whatever 2.0' - the t-shirt merchandising alone could make me, er us, millions - but of course someone has beaten Elmo to it. However, Googling the term led me to this rather good post on Web 2.0 baloney.)

Show me the money! or Musings of a 2.0 Sceptic

First, let me apologize for that image of Tom Cruise. I realize that nowadays a lot of people find him kind of creepy. But Tom is asking what I'm asking: Show me the money! By which I mean, show me what 'Library 2.0' really is.

The Learning 2.0 programme has left me with a nagging doubt that 'Library 2.0' is just another of those culture fads that we'll look back on in 10 years' time with a mixture of embarrassment and amusement, like Segways, or manmade global warming. Perhaps it'll be an answer in the 2015 edition of Trivial Pursuit.

The trouble sign is that no-one can tell me what L2.0 actually is. Every blog and website I have visited just sprays around words like community, trust, participation, content-rich, interactive, etc., in much the same way that a squid uses ink, or heavy metal bands use dry-ice fog. Sadly, I'm inclined to agree with online columnist Jonah Goldberg:

"Web 2.0 is a nothing but a buzz phrase designed to make money for people who use phrases like Web 2.0."

This is not to say that new things are not happening in Libraries. Unquestionably they are, and nobody knows this better than librarians. But what is the purpose of taking a grab-bag of mostly unrelated internet applications, and pretending that they form an organic identity that is, moreover, crucial to the survival of libraries? Blogging is important for librarians? Show me the money! Show me the library blog that really makes a difference. Tell me how many library patrons actually read it.

Librarians need to know about blogs, certainly, in the same way they need to know about lots of other things in the modern world, like pole dancing. But to insist that a librarian needs to write a blog in order to be modern is like insisting they ride around the library on those stupid Segways instead of walking.

Update: I should have known.

Must read

Again, a must-read post on the subject of Library 2.0 from the wonderful Annoyed Librarian.

Not scared enough

I'm grateful to the Library 2.0 program, who regularly stops by to read my posts and leave a friendly comment. But at the risk of seeming ungracious, I have to point out that he/she seems to have missed the point of my earlier post. When the tottery old couple re-appeared in our newly re-opened hi-tech reading room, I didn't pump my fist in the air for joy, shouting "Thank God! Our technology hasn't frightened them away!" On the contrary, I felt something between wry humour and mild depression.

One of the myths of modern libraries which I refuse to buy into is the nonsense about people being scared of libraries, and that it's somehow our job as librarians to free them from this crippling scourge. What a load of bollocks. If anything, the problem is that people aren't scared enough of Libraries. Every day my Library is full of people who seem to think it's their lounge room, bathroom, dining room and love-hotel. To anyone who is "scared" of Libraries, I can only say Get Help. Or else, if you're scared of libraries, then it's a pretty good sign you probably shouldn't be in them. They're not for everyone.

There is another

If this blog does nothing else, in its short life, it will not have lived in vain if it brings just one new reader to the most wonderful library blog ever - The Annoyed Librarian.

(My thanks to one who I'm sure prefers to remain anonymous).

Library n.0

My head is spinning from reading some of those librarians we were asked to read for week six. Usually, when I hear talk like that, it's somebody trying to sell me a monorail, or seventy-six trombones, or something. These libraries of the future sound wonderful, but I just have one question: where are we going to find human beings worthy of them?

You are no doubt familiar with the work of New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams. One of my favourite Charles Addams multi-panel cartoons (which I can't find online), shows a gloomy, decrepit old gothic mansion in a street of otherwise modern buildings. A hoarding goes up: "Soon to be constructed on this site, modern office building, etc." In the dead of night, a sinister vampire-like figure leaves the old building, with a bundle of possessions. The old building is torn down and the gleaming, modern new building is erected. Then, in the final panel, again in the dead of night, we see the vampire quietly entering the new building, carrying his bundle.

I tell this story because it makes a very good point, which I can duplicate from my own experience. In the days before my library was extensively modernised, among our regulars was an extremely ancient and tottery couple, the husband of which would spend the whole of every day reading lawbooks (no doubt preparing to right some ancient wrong he had suffered), while his wife sat patiently in idle attendance.

Then we closed the reading room, remodelled it, and re-opened it - brand spanking new, massed arrays of glowing computer screens like the bridge of the Discovery. We seemed to have inaugurated a new era of librarianship. And who were the first people to walk through the door? The ancient tottery couple.

Have I made my point?

Week Five in review

Er, let's see, where was I? Oh yeah, Image generators. Well, as my mother used to tell me, if you can't say something nice about a piece of 2.0 gimmickry, don't say anything.

Library Thing. Again, is it just me, or this idea of people cataloguing their own book collections, and then sharing the lists, deeply sad?

Rollyo. At least I can see where this might have some use for some folks. It's just that I'm not one of them. The rolling has already been done for me, with tools like Picture Australia and Libraries Australia.

Goodbye Week Five, you are the weakest link.

The information soup-kitchen

I'm old enough to remember one of the more embarrassing catch-phrases of the early Internet era: the information super-highway. When I stand on shift at a public desk, and see someone sprawled in a chair, watching YouTube videos by the hour, a different phrase comes to mind: the information soup-kitchen. (Younger readers, and Millennials, unfamiliar with this concept can see here.)

The film-maker David Cronenberg made some prophetic movies in the 1970s and 80s, and his greatest film Videodrome (1983) contains many uncanny premonitions of the Internet age. One scene shows a character called Brian O'Blivion, who helps homeless men - or so he believes - by giving them access to television for hours on end. Television, he says "patches them back into the mixing-board of Life". When I see the idle YouTube watchers whose main purpose in life is to trigger the Library's people counters every day, I am reminded of Brian O'Blivion.

Who is Secret Thornton?

It's funny how soon your ear can become attuned and detuned to certain accents. After only a few days away in Tasmania, in the company of someone who speaks in that very precise English accent that certain native Tasmanians retain, I returned to Melbourne. When I was re-exposed to mainland radio and television (especially the ABC) I found the strine accents almost comical. I was genuinely puzzled for a moment when one ABC announcer repeatedly referred to someone called 'Secret Thornton'.