Category: New Librarianship

A few weeks back Lane Wilkinson put together a nice thoughtful piece on the Little Free Libraries. While he and I don’t see eye to eye on everything he always makes me think and I have great respect for his point of view. This time he got me thinking about fiction, and the role of recreational reading in libraries.
The following is not really a response to Lane; it doesn’t really need a response. I agree with most of what he says. Also, I’m not hitting every point he makes about stories and shared literary experience (still thinking on that). His noting that my work has “(literally) nothing to say about the aesthetic and cultural value of literature or fiction in libraries” is true. Other than broad strokes that I don’t separate out what we learn from fiction or while we are having fun from non-fiction and when we are doing serious study – I haven’t been explicit. Let me be explicit and ask for your thoughts and reactions. I’ll start with the mission of librarians:

“The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities”

Take a look at the mission again: improving society through facilitating knowledge creation. What ever happened to promoting a love of reading and/or books? Does this adopting this mission mean abandoning reading and literature, fiction and prose? No. The reason reading isn’t in this larger mission is that not all libraries are centrally focused on reading. Where school libraries and public libraries see one of their core goals the promotion and expansion of reading skills (and therefore should include these in their missions); corporate and academic libraries assume the folks they serve already have these skills. What’s more, while reading is a crucial skill to creating knowledge, it is not the exclusive route to “enlightenment.” Some learn through reading, some through video, others through doing (and the vast majority through combining these). We should expect our libraries to support all of these modalities of learning.

When folks ask me about libraries, reading, and my proposed mission they are normally asking “can’t I just use the library to read a good novel or borrow a DVD without worrying about saving the world? Isn’t there value in just reading for recreation?” My answer is yes and that fiction is as important to learning and building knowledge as non-fiction. Stories are how we dream and how we test our ethical bounds. A good novel can often reveal fundamental truth in ways no academic tome of philosophy ever can. What’s more, the ideas and inspirations for great action often come when we least expect it.
Much of library literature focuses on concepts of information and empowerment often ignoring or silently assuming that libraries can still support recreation and reading development. To be sure my work is focused on libraries as places of social engagement and learning. The question isn’t “should libraries support recreational reading.” The answer to that question is dependent on the community — like supporting the arts or parks. The real question revolves around folks who want to turn recreational reading into something social, or geared towards some larger goal.

So I read and love a book. That may be enough for me. But what if a beautiful piece of fiction inspires me to write my own novel, or invent some new device, or form a group of others who love the book and seek to act. It is not the role of the library to predetermine the outcomes of reading (or inventing, or movie making) – that edges too close to telling people what to read and why. Rather it is the place of the library to be a platform for the community member to turn their love and passion into something for the good of the community and/or themselves.

The more we do of something the better we get. So we need to support reading of all kinds where appropriate (in the library, in school, on the playground, on vacation, in the laboratory, in video games). When you read the words “knowledge” and “learning” throughout my work, don’t think I am limiting that to just to the ideas found in textbooks and research articles. Poetry, novels, a good science fiction story all carry equal weight to me in knowledge creation. However, I believe that we should also expect our libraries of all kinds to be ready to support the outcomes of that reading.

Here is the tweet that led to this post:

“Bad Libraries build collections. Good libraries build services (of which a collection is only one). Great libraries build Communities”

Due to character limits it was often re-tweeted without the parenthetical:

“Bad Libraries build collections. Good libraries build services. Great libraries build Communities”

Let’s face it, this is snappier, but it is also apparently more controversial. There were a number of responses along the line that good and great libraries must build collections too. I thought it was worth more than 140 characters to add some nuance and depth to the tweet, so here we are.

Before I jump all the way in here…if you are an auditory or visual type, I made a lot fo these points in this screencast:

https://davidlankes.org/rdlankes/blog/?p=1406

Now, back to the tweet.

First, there is nothing that says that good and great libraries don’t or can’t build collections. It is a matter of focus. If librarians focus solely or disproportionately on the collection, that is bad. This shows up in a couple of ways. The first is obvious: acquisitions with little or no input from members of the community. Are you adding to a collection because of what is on the New York Times bestsellers, or that’s what the jobber sends? Bad. If you aren’t looking at circulations data, having conversations with the community, or looking at ILL data: bad. 

I am reminded of this in the current debate around ebooks. There is a lot of talk about whether libraries should be buying ebooks at all. Someone asked me what I thought and I said that tactically librarians should build their own ebook platform that brings a lot of value to authors, and; two, ask your community. If you are planning on boycotting or simply staying out of ebooks, have you had that conversation with the communities? Does the community think it is a bad deal what the publishers are proposing? Are they ok with not having that as a library service? Note this is not simply asking meekly, but truly having a conversation where you are presenting an argument and showing the community the big picture and then listening.

If we are talking focus, what is the difference between bad libraries and good ones? Good libraries focus on users. That is they evaluate the utility of the collection is relation to user needs. What do people want and need in terms of the collection, and how does that balance with all the other things the library does (reference, programming, digital resources, instruction, etc.). Here not only do we look at user data such as circulation and such, but the whole user experience.

There was once a debate among the faculty here at Syracuse about where we should teach collection development. It was (and is) part of a class title “Library Planning, Marketing, and Assessment.” The instructor at the time didn’t like it there. How do weeding and marketing go together? Well, it turns out the questions you ask about the collection are like any other service: what are the objectives? How is it used? Is it easy to access (and assess)? The collection is a service like any other – it needs budgeting, planning, and a reason to exist. 

Good libraries understand that any time you add value to a user experience you are proving a service. Shelving? Service. Cataloging? Service. Weeding? Service (to save the user time and eliminate rapid access to out of date information). I know all of these things are wrapped up as “collection,” but by breaking them apart you can better evaluate them, and better accomplish them.

I pick the term “user” carefully in this part of the discussion, because I believe it is what separates good from great. You see a good library sees the collection as a service and therefore monitors and plans for its use. A great library sees the collection as only a tool to push a community forward, and more than that, they see the library itself as a platform for the community to produce as well as consume. The library member co-owns the collection and all the other services offered by the librarians. The library services are part of a larger knowledge “eco-system” where members are consuming information yes (a user), but also producing, working, dreaming, and playing. That is the focus of a great library. They understand that the materials a library houses and acquires is not the true collection of a library – the community is.

So, do good, bad, great, and ugly libraries have collections? Yes. But great libraries realize that the collection is not what sits on the stacks, but the members and their worlds. The focus is on connection development, not collection development. Will there be collections developed? Probably, but that collection may be of links, digital scans, books, building materials, video production equipment, performance time on a stage, and/or experts. 

This is clear in the discussion around school libraries. As districts around the country are eliminating school librarians they often cite that the hours of the library won’t go down. “We can keep the doors open with library aids, or existing staff in the building.” They ignore the data that shows that it is certified school librarians, not open hours, or the collection, that improves test scores and student retention. Librarians not libraries make the difference.

Once again, does the school librarian use a collection? Certainly, but great school librarians have a collections of lessons they teach, student teams that assist teachers with technology, and collections of good pedagogy. Want to save money in a school? Close the library and hire more school librarians. 

This tweet is not a call to throw out collections of materials – there is great value there – but to change focus and realize that that value comes not from the artifacts, but the community’s ability to improve. That value may come from licensed databases in academia. It may come from shipping containers full of paper books in rural Africa. It may come from genealogy materials in the public library, or special collections in the Ivy League. But for some communities it may come from the rich array of open resources accessible via any smartphone, or, increasingly, artifacts, ideas, and services created by the community itself.

Great libraries can have great buildings, or lousy buildings, or no buildings at all. Great libraries can have millions of volumes, or none. But great libraries always have great librarians who engage the community and seek to identify and help fulfill the aspirations of that community.

Some folks have recently commented that in my presentations and writings I have a political agenda. They are right, but it is not what they think it is.

I believe that librarians must be political. That is they must be aware of politics, aid their members in political pursuits, and actively participate in the political process. Now directors of libraries will see this as nothing new, but I believe that all librarians must be politically savvy. Why? Well, let’s start with my definition of politics: politics is the process by which a community allocates power and resources.

Now the obvious link would be thinking about politics related directly to the library. That is funding, staffing, intellectual property, and the policies that shape how the library works. However, the political nature of librarians extends far beyond the library as an institution.

If you seek to empower people, you are talking about how power is distributed throughout a community (the “power” has to come from somewhere). Take reading as an example: why do libraries care about reading? Is it because it entertains and distracts community members from how the community makes decision (i.e., reading is for consumption), or is it to enable the reader to participate within the community (i.e., reading as empowerment)? If you buy into the concept that libraries are enmeshed into the larger concept of democracy, then we are preparing people for democratic participation. That is preparing people to join the conversation of how they are governed…that is political. The same could be said of academic libraries educating students (we are preparing students to be part of a market, but also part of a society). While special libraries tend to focus on helping members participate in markets (industry), they are also preparing the corporation, or non-profit, or government to participate in governance (from lobbying, to shaping regulation).

So libraries are political entities, and librarians are political creatures. This brings us to the real concern people raise about new librarianship -that I am somehow calling for librarians to pick sides. That is that I am either calling for librarians to rally against the tea party and begin a massive campaign of wealth redistribution. Or that I am calling for librarians to take over city hall and shape a community to our vision and definitions of good. The implication is that I am calling for librarian to declare themselves as democrats, or republicans – progressives or conservatives, etc. This leads to a very real concern that in doing so libraries and librarians would lose their status as honest brokers, and so lose their support by their communities. I actually agree.
However, when I call for librarians to be political, I am not calling for them to partisan, that is picking winners and losers. If there is one thing that librarians understand, it is that the world is much more complex than that.

Librarians see many sides of one issue. They may believe strongly in a given idea, but they are open to all ideas, and at least seek the merit in them (realizing they may find none). If librarians were to become partisan, they not only threaten their ability to serve and the communities trust, they would collapse ideas down to simple black and whites and not stay true to their professional ethos.

Librarians need to engage in politics not to reinforce the divisions of us versus them and not to perpetuate all or nothing win or lose ideals. They must become engaged in politics to ease these divisions. Just as librarians facilitate knowledge creation with the individual, they must also facilitate conversations and knowledge across political ideology (I never said that would be easy). Just as we are trusted agents in the land of reading and job searches, so too must we be trusted agents in the land of power and political debate. Think of the Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service, State Law Libraries, and agency libraries.

Furthermore, rather than thinking of political involvement as some sort of debate at the national level, realize that political conversations occur at all levels of a community and society. From school boards, to governors, and from Wall Street to the kitchen table, librarians must bring their skills to democracy. Our job is not to win some partisan point, but to ensure the very conversation on how we govern ourselves (in the city, in the classroom, in the business) is fair, open, and informed. This conversation is the heart of democracy. Libraries need to be at the Occupy protests to ensure the power of the people, and the destruction of these libraries is either horrific ignorance, or the worst kind of cynical suppression.

I have heard a lot of talk about the “American Dream” recently. On the radio, on TV, and throughout the political discourse there are questions being raised about is the American Dream dead. Certainly this is in part a reaction to the economic times and a lack of economic mobility. It is definitely due in large part of gridlock in Washington, and an increased polarization of the political debate in the media. However, I have heard all too often that politicians are to blame – when they are there at our behest. Just as a library is product of people (community, librarians, staff), so too is our government. It is the role of librarians to first remind our communities that every citizen is responsible for the performance of our government and that the best elected government is one that is elected in the light of knowledge. This is the difference between citizen and consumer. A citizen is a participant who does not simply vote and forget.

The quest for dignity. the quest for prosperity, the quest for the American dream is neither kindled nor sustained in a mall. Freedom is not bought nor consumed. The quest for a better community and a better tomorrow requires the most fertile of grounds. Our dreams demand libraries and librarians. It is in the potent mix of ideas and reality – of the radical and the mundane – in the glow of both solitude and community – that we care take the dreams of a nation. Librarians are political because we all need to be political and join the debates of how power and resources are divided in this nation and indeed the world. Librarians, however, have a special responsibility to ensure that all participation is informed, nuanced, and ongoing.