Why we won't be here in 20 years

[Joe Schallan]

Why we won't be here in 20 years

(This is slightly off-topic, in that it does not deal with
technical issues associated with web use in library settings,
but it does deal with the public image of the library in the
context of the web, and I believe the issues I raise bear
directly on our survival.)

In today's (2-17-97) Ann Landers column, a reader from
Roanoke, Virginia writes, on the subject of the usefulness
of the web,

"You can find weather for any city in the world, maps,
movie reviews, recipes, political commentary, employment
opportunities, video clips, music, photos and more research
information than you could find in your library.  All this in
the comfort of your home.  The Internet is a modern-day
miracle."

This was printed in the context of a pro/con debate about
the merits of the net.  Now a single writer to Ann Landers
scarcely constitutes a valid sample, but I have heard this
writer's viewpoint time and again from our patrons and
from people I meet socially.  When they find out I'm a
librarian, they ask what I plan to do after we close down
all the libraries.

Now we know that the statement "more research information
than you could find in your library" is false, unless it is a
very small library.  Yet this has become the public perception
very quickly.

My wife is an instructional librarian at a shared public/school
library, and she reports similar perceptions on the part of the
students.  When asked how they plan to proceed with their
research, they answer "Oh, I'll find it on the Internet." Despite
years of our efforts, reference books and periodical indices
(digital or printed) do not even occur to them.

Here's my concern.  When libraries go to the voters with bond
issues, the libraries usually win because of the good will of the
voters.  The voters feel good about public libraries and are
usually willing to oblige.  Most do not know the library well, nor
have they studied the particulars of the issue at hand.  If 
economic times are good in the community, then voters, who
feel good if not enthusiastic about their library, are happy to
vote the requested funds.

But what if we are suddenly perceived as irrelevant?  Marginalized?
Of no more importance to civic and educational concerns than the
local historical society museum?  Won't the voters say "We can get
all this on the net . . . why spend tax dollars on a library?"

I predict that unless we convince citizens of the the value we add
to information, then marginalization is our destiny.

What we haven't done well is promote ourselves.  The value of
a library does not lie so much in its materials as in the expertise
of its librarians.  Yet the voting public views us as information
warehouses attended to by clerks.

We know that the web, with all its treasures but also with all
its chaos and unauthenticated and downright unreliable information,
cannot yet match a well-stocked public library.

And even when it does match (and it will), who will be the
guides?

Comments?


-- 
Joe Schallan
Reference Librarian and Web Page Editor
Glendale (Arizona) Public Library
jschall at glenpub.lib.az.us