Googlization at Your Library

The recent demise of numerous newspapers and rise of digital readers has left many wondering what the future of the publishing industry might be. our reading attention has demands coming from an ever increasing number of sources and new formats. By extension, it has led many to question what form libraries will take in the future as well. In a talk with a class at UW-Madison titled The Googlization of Libraries Leonard Kniffel, editor at American Libraries, gave his own take on the issue.

The first question he addressed was whether or not format matters. Does it really matter to readers if they have a book or graphic novel in hand? Does it matter if we are reading off a screen? The conventional wisdom would probably be yes. But an editor needs to ask who is going to read the item whether the format matters to them. If we are talking about kids, then you have to go where they want to go, whether it be graphic novels or comic strips. It also matters whether an item is being read for pleasure or work.

Different people will approach reading in their own ways. Leonard gave himself as an example. He didn't come from a house full of books. Instead his hook into reading was his third grade teacher reading Laura Ingalls Wilder to him.

One of the most interesting aspects of the talk was a point Leonard made about the sentimental image libraries use in their advocacy. He brought up Chicago Tribune critic Julia Keller's cautioning that sugar-coated stories of good old libraries can cause more than good (in fact, in a piece for PBS she explains how the modern library is a young, technologically-enhanced, institution-- a afar cry from the library of her childhood). Nostalgic images make libraries seem quaint and reinforce dusty stereotypes. Ever since I decided to go into the library field I have thought that libraries had an image problem. Often their advertising and public relations seems outright hokey or old fashioned, even if the institutions themselves are anything but. Most of my friends and family, educated and not, have little knowledge of the services libraries provide. Not because they are dumb, but simply because no one has told them.

As Leonard explained, libraries still have problems with people viewing them simply as book warehouses. Politicians who don't visit them see them as great candidates for the budget chopping block once things get tight. From this we get the increasingly too common refrain along the lines of, "Everything is on the Internet, so what do we need a library for anyhow?" One example Leonard gave was of one man's effort to discontinue funding for a Florida library system in Alachua County. He figured that chain bookstores and the Internet filled the library's shoes just fine.

One last point: Leonard talked about the challenge of making people understand that Google and the Internet are not competitors with libraries. As a defacto library representative among non-library folk this is something I encounter on a regular basis. Nothing could be further from the truth. As most people find out, after thinking the issue through, they actually complement each other nicely. I think that many people have an easy time seeing that books are actually enhanced by Internet resources. The challenge right now is showing them how books and librarians enhance Internet resources.

After all, if he had to choose, even Bill Gates would take a library of books over computers.