[Web4lib] Shouldn't Libraries be Technology Hubs, instead?

[Steven E. Patamia, Ph.D.]

Thanks Robert,

     The kitchen table is not a perfect image for leading off the ideas I
tried to convey about place. Moreover, norms aside, there is notable
variation among people in taste and in ways they respond to different kinds
of ambiance.  I have  a buddy, a physicist and early career professor, who
almost literally cannot work at home even when he is the only person there.
  He does not, however head for the library most of the time (he does
go occasionally).  No...his perfect environment for completing a proposal or
writing a paper or even completing a computation is usually a noisy coffee
shop.

     I, on the other hand, often work at home to avoid time lost commuting
to other locations (I live in a rural setting), but a good library (I use
law, public, and sometimes university libraries) is very conducive to my
writing and state of mind needed for a delicate composition or computation.
 I have good broadband at home (it was not always thus), but that is not a
factor in these cases.   The power of changing environment is what I am
trying to tap into.

     Some environments really are special.  For other kinds of people, some
libraries can and do offer programs and services aside from solitude.  In
all cases there is often great psychological power in public places and
architecture.  There are places we go just because it feels good to be there
even if we do not spend time trying to figure out why.  Since libraries were
historically "places"  it makes sense to me that their potential to offer a
welcoming environment for those seeking information or an environment
conducive to intellectual activity should be capitalized upon.

     Anyway, how to deal with authors and publishers and how to justify the
funding of public libraries are the really big issues here.  Technology
seems to be taking care of itself in the sense that there is already a
robust real-time interplay between and among those who need to keep up with
it and refine it to their information needs. Ditto for the communication
challenges affecting libraries and their patrons.  Public interest versus
private interest .... that it what needs to be grappled with.

     Finally, consider the timelessness of the great cathedrals  in Europe.
 Even closer in time there are examples of public places (like Grand Central
Station) which become icons of public infrastructure for which aesthetics
and scale combine to touch some of the same psychic chords in people as
cathedrals were intended to.  A large building that is also an aesthetic
wonder attracts and inspires a lot of people.  When it also conveys an
egalitarian message that all who come here seeking information are welcome,
that counts for something.

[     Germane, but more personal aside: I lived in Tampa, Florida when Tampa
International Airport was constructed.  I witnessed first hand how a single
large public works project dramatically changed the self image of an entire
metropolitan population.  When it first opened the general public (end of
the 60's) local people flocked to it just to experience it as a wonder.
 Within five years of that time, Tampa -- a small town that got big --
joined contemporaneous commerce and culture in a big way.  It may never be
Boston, but it will never be what it was either.  I am not exaggerating when
I allege that the construction of that one facility was the key to the
cultural and commercial transformation of an entire metropolitan area.  Not
all airport projects have such a dramatic affect, but Tampa International
Airport is an award winning facility.  It remains a marvel of efficiency and
attractiveness even now with traffic many times over what it had in the
early 70's.  Places do matter and they can be shrewdly done to achieve much
bigger things than their immediate function. ]


On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 7:37 AM, Robert L. Balliot <
rballiot at oceanstatelibrarian.com> wrote:

>
> The question of libraries being technology hubs (instead) is a bit
> misleading.  The codex *is* technology.  It is a very efficient information
> storage and delivery system. So, libraries have always been technology
> hubs.
>
> I like this analysis.  It is a topic that I discuss almost daily with my
> wife (a law librarian) and one I heard in many iterations practically from
> birth from my father (an academic librarian).  I was born in Ann Arbor
> while
> he was in library school. I grew up in academic libraries: Oregon State,
> Iowa State, SUNY-Fredonia, University of Illinois, Wesleyan, Peabody
> College
> (Vanderbilt), Western Carolina, University of Pittsburgh.  I worked in
> three: RISD, Brown, and Roger Williams University and multiple public
> libraries.
>
> The one flaw that I see in it is the kitchen table concept. I personally
> have more computing power and bandwidth than most libraries had available
> for years.  It is likely that I can do *more* from my home office than can
> be accomplished in almost any library computer lab or even in many large
> library systems offices.  So, the place concept may hold true for homeless,
> but that is about as far as it goes. In fact, with a smart phone the
> homeless can have most information needs served anywhere.
>
> We were walking by the shore a few months ago and something large was
> moving
> very fast through the reeds.  We could not identify it, but it was somewhat
> intimidating. We were talking with my sister about it, she Droided it and
> showed us a picture of a Fisher Cat
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_(animal)> .  It was the answer. No
> library involved.
>
> *************************************************
> Robert L. Balliot
> Skype: RBalliot
> Bristol, Rhode Island
> http://oceanstatelibrarian.com/contact.htm
> *************************************************
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Steven E. Patamia,
> Ph.D.
> Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 12:39 AM
> To: Ruschau
> Cc: roytennant at gmail.com; web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Shouldn't Libraries be Technology Hubs, instead?
>
>    Please consider the following personal essay inspired by this thread.
>
>    I like to discover the core of difficult issues and problems through the
> mechanism of carefully restating the obvious.  If you have no taste for
> that
> kind of analysis, press delete now.  If you do read on and find at the end
> you already reached similar conclusions or had already seen the issues and
> problems in the same way, then please forgive me.  After all, there are
> many
> very well educated and obviously thoughtful souls who subscribe to this
> mailing list.  I accept the risk of boring or even offending some of them.
> -------------------------
>
>     Having followed postings on web4lib for several year, there is no more
> perplexing nor important a topic than than what constitutes a library  --
>  abstractly and in practice.
>
>     Questions about what a library "should be" are intrinsically more
> speculative, but in practice always seem to involve concepts of what the
> essence of a library is, coupled to a concern about how to adapt the forms
> they took in the past to the realities of current and evolving technology.
>
>     All these discussions have tended to reveal a quite realistic concern
> about whether libraries can remain relevant in a future in which recorded
> information of all kinds can be accessed  using electronic devices --
> especially those amenable to personal ownership.  Embedded in these
> discussions, I detect a deep personal concern among participants about
> whether "librarian" is a job description with a future.
>
>     The good news is that a lot of participants are aggressively expanding
> their skill sets to insure they will not be rendered irrelevant. The bad
> news is that publishers are adopting strategies and embracing (and
> influencing) the evolution of legal protections which continue to promote
> the notion that information is owned by individuals and private entities in
> ways that disregard or openly corrode free public access.  In fact, my
> personal take on things is that the battle to preserve mechanisms of free
> public access to information is a decisive battle in a larger war between
> what's left of public interest and the overwhelmingly stronger bastions of
> private interest.
>
>     Libraries, for centuries, were guardians of the principle that the
> recorded work product of humanity was, in some sense, owned by humanity
> collectively even when (later) recorded copies had a reproducible physical
> form which was conducive to individual material ownership.  As long as
> libraries were slightly inconvenient, they did not threaten publishers and
> authors and even supported their private interests by providing a sampling
> venue for published works.  It did not threaten a publisher or author if
> some subset of the population was content to compete among themselves for
> temporary custody of a copy of something. Now that the same content can be
> electronically stored and it becomes possible to distribute it massively
> with little difficulty,  the publishers and authors perceive a genuine
> threat to actual sales.  And so it is, that whether it is stated openly or
> not, the real existential threat to libraries is that they themselves
> threaten the marketing model of those who profit from the distribution of
> electronically recorded content.
>
>     Turning now to the ostensibly narrow question of whether libraries
> "should be technology hubs,"  I worry that this is a mildly interesting
> question which nevertheless attempts to reframe a crucial problem by
> deflecting attention to an almost trivial side question.  In point of fact,
> I find it impossible to imagine that whatever libraries of the present
> evolve into next, that they would not necessarily constitute "technology
> hubs" irrespective of roles they play in society.   While physical
> collections remain important for a time, digitization will guarantee that
> the curator function of libraries will become increasingly divorced from
> their information delivery and access functions and the latter will be
> totally technology  driven.
>
>     We already live in a world in which every distributor of electronically
> recorded information is able to create their own internet- accessible
> gateway to the content they want to distribute.  Every website is or could
> be a kind of library of the content they offer.  It could thus be argued
> that traditional libraries as we know them -- even the ones automating
> themselves aggressively and even the ones aggregating technical expertise
> on
> the ever growing number of software interfaces to electronically recorded
> content --  are being inexorably replaced by literally millions of
> commercial and private competitors. Of course public libraries exist to
> make
> information available without charge to their patrons and private libraries
> offer information freely within their host organizations.  Of those
> millions
> of privately owned, but publicly accessible, sources, some offer content
> for
> free, some sell it, and some are financially supported by advertising or
> politically motivated sponsorship.
>
>     Again, what's new and different is that there is a competition between
> purely public interest and private interests involving access to content.
>  The quintessential question in the minds of authors and publishes is now:
> do we benefit from the existence of public libraries?  If
> the consensus answer to this question becomes "no" then,  absent changes in
> the laws of nations, public libraries could all be demoted to archives in a
> very brief time.   What we now call "special libraries" might remain
> viable,
> but only to the extent that they aggregated subscriptions to private
> sources
> and organize in-house proprietary information.  It is the "public"
> libraries
> that face a dire existential threat -- at least to the extent that they
> serve as publicly financed gateways to "information."
>
>     This is not to say that public libraries could not or should not
> continue to serve important constituencies or remain guardians of literacy
> in a profound cultural sense.  And besides, there is a lot to be said for
> ambiance and the impact of "place."  To abide in a place that venerates
> scholarship and provides an atmosphere of high respect for personal
> research
> and intensity of intellectual pursuit still beats the pants off of working
> at the kitchen table.  Its also at least possible that some technologies
> will never scale down to my kitchen table or home study desk. Maybe
> something like a holodeck will become a reality one day -- and it will not
> fit neatly into most people's homes.  Why do people benefit from adventure
> travel or even just going on vacations?  Perhaps the answers to those kinds
> of questions will inspire ideas about what a "library" of the future, as a
> physical place, could look like.   The problem, however, is that adventure
> travel and exotic vacations are an indulgence paid for by the traveler.
> Even
> a homeless person can now walk into a public library and access all the
> information content it provides.
>
>    And lastly, if we do not, as a society, provide ways to equalize access
> to information and study environments regardless of personal wealth, do we
> not undermine democracy itself?  The answer to this last question will
> probably depend on how ingrained your veneration of private interest is and
> to what degree you believe that public interest and "the commons" of
> society
> are worthy ideals.   I'd be curious to know whether there is a consensus
> among librarians on the answer to this last ,somewhat politically charged,
> question.
>
> On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 6:55 PM, Ruschau <ruschau at aol.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> >  Libraries should offer access to information in new technologies, but at
> > the same time not ignore information in older formats, ie. books.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> Steven E. Patamia, Ph.D., J.D.
> Personal Cell: (352) 219-6592
> _______________________________________________
> Web4lib mailing list
> Web4lib at webjunction.org
> http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>
>


-- 
Steven E. Patamia, Ph.D., J.D.
Personal Cell: (352) 219-6592