Week 10: Building Communities
Public Agenda: “Long Overdue…”
Two results of this study exemplify interesting current issues facing libraries, and they are topics we touched on in class. First, the surveys revealed that people feel the government should pay the cost of installing Internet access in public libraries, which is complemented by the later finding that people rank maintaining free library services as a high priority for their local communities. Together these two opinions speak loudly to the democratic, social value of the public library as an institution. Even the subsection of non-PC users rank computer/Internet accessibility as a priority, which is most likely a reflection of society’s growing dependency on and value of technology. These related results are hopeful about the library having a definite role in society in the future; however, it will most likely need to evolve in nature and expand to include new materials as demanded by social needs, like computer access for younger generations and those compromised by their socioeconomic situation.
Second, this one is extracted from the results of the interviews conducted on civic leaders, one major stumbling block for public libraries is the lack of marketing boosting awareness and subsequent involvement from the local community. This is one commonly cited idea for increasing the library’s influences, yet is an unfeasible solution. Isn’t it funny how people look to the government to provide the necessary funding while the government apparently looks right back at the private sector? Advertising is something major corporations spend lots of money on per year, with the hope of turning a profit in the end from the customers buying their goods. No such reciprocity exists for public libraries, which assess minimal charges for their services if any at all. Companies spend substantial percentages of their budgets on effective ads that will capture the fancy of its target consumer. Libraries cannot afford that type of expense in a shrinking, already strained budget. In light of mega-bookstores revolutionizing how the public accesses or even approaches accessing information, public libraries will need to consider other options to stimulate new sources of revenue, like seeking donations from private corporations or individuals (like Andrew Carnegie) which would bring in new money but would not force libraries to compromise their mission’s ideals or their service to their patrons under the conditions imposed by a corporate vendor.
Thomas Mann “The differences between real and virtual libraries”
I found the author’s identification of the trade offs between real and virtual libraries very insightful and directly on point, especially his analysis of the restriction of access between what, who, and where when talking about people accessing information. Many optimistic people view the Internet as this massively powerful new information-wielding technology, and yet it’s those same people who gloss over the vast number of people who cannot regularly gain access. Without regular access people do not learn how to integrate the technology into their lives and thus find a way to make the technology work for them, bringing tangible benefits. Instead it’s an occasional use if ever, and mostly frustrating as the user struggles through navigating a technology they are unfamiliar with using. It cannot be overstated that the library serves to level out the access discrepancy between the often referred to technology ‘have and have-nots’, especially for those who can’t possibly afford to pay to access a database or to purchase their own copy of a book or magazine from a store like Borders.
Though I agree with the author that the digital library should not be consider a replacement for the real library and rather a supplement, time seems to be indicating otherwise. Mann points to how a fraction of the world’s printed collection can be accessed through virtual portals, but that was 8 years ago. Since he wrote this article, websites an online-accessible databases have proliferated and saturated the Internet, bringing more and more of the world’s print information to a distance of only a few clicks. The most recent example I can think of is this Google Book Project initiative, which brilliantly began with various universities’ libraries and their collected publications with expired copyrights. Even the UW has jumped on the Google bandwagon. I see two potential paths for the years to come: either people will recognize how valuable accessing these newly scanned materials is and the project will expand in scope and popular involvement, or people won’t really care and so they won’t take up the fight of establishing copyright ownership and the project will expand in scope. I use the Internet mainly as a starting point when researching information on a topic, since the UW’s search engines are easy to navigate from the comfort of home, but I often end up going to the library to patch holes in my online research or to do more thorough research with the available resources or librarians. Hopefully society will recognize library’s essential role in free information provision before we all preemptively switch to an entirely electronic way of life and the libraries wither away from neglect. I’m with the majority of the people studied in the first article when I say that the disappearance of the library would be a great loss felt by the whole community, not just a few of the current generations, but certainly all the future generations who would never experience the quiet oasis of opportunity that a library contains, if only you should choose to take advantage of its resources.
Two results of this study exemplify interesting current issues facing libraries, and they are topics we touched on in class. First, the surveys revealed that people feel the government should pay the cost of installing Internet access in public libraries, which is complemented by the later finding that people rank maintaining free library services as a high priority for their local communities. Together these two opinions speak loudly to the democratic, social value of the public library as an institution. Even the subsection of non-PC users rank computer/Internet accessibility as a priority, which is most likely a reflection of society’s growing dependency on and value of technology. These related results are hopeful about the library having a definite role in society in the future; however, it will most likely need to evolve in nature and expand to include new materials as demanded by social needs, like computer access for younger generations and those compromised by their socioeconomic situation.
Second, this one is extracted from the results of the interviews conducted on civic leaders, one major stumbling block for public libraries is the lack of marketing boosting awareness and subsequent involvement from the local community. This is one commonly cited idea for increasing the library’s influences, yet is an unfeasible solution. Isn’t it funny how people look to the government to provide the necessary funding while the government apparently looks right back at the private sector? Advertising is something major corporations spend lots of money on per year, with the hope of turning a profit in the end from the customers buying their goods. No such reciprocity exists for public libraries, which assess minimal charges for their services if any at all. Companies spend substantial percentages of their budgets on effective ads that will capture the fancy of its target consumer. Libraries cannot afford that type of expense in a shrinking, already strained budget. In light of mega-bookstores revolutionizing how the public accesses or even approaches accessing information, public libraries will need to consider other options to stimulate new sources of revenue, like seeking donations from private corporations or individuals (like Andrew Carnegie) which would bring in new money but would not force libraries to compromise their mission’s ideals or their service to their patrons under the conditions imposed by a corporate vendor.
Thomas Mann “The differences between real and virtual libraries”
I found the author’s identification of the trade offs between real and virtual libraries very insightful and directly on point, especially his analysis of the restriction of access between what, who, and where when talking about people accessing information. Many optimistic people view the Internet as this massively powerful new information-wielding technology, and yet it’s those same people who gloss over the vast number of people who cannot regularly gain access. Without regular access people do not learn how to integrate the technology into their lives and thus find a way to make the technology work for them, bringing tangible benefits. Instead it’s an occasional use if ever, and mostly frustrating as the user struggles through navigating a technology they are unfamiliar with using. It cannot be overstated that the library serves to level out the access discrepancy between the often referred to technology ‘have and have-nots’, especially for those who can’t possibly afford to pay to access a database or to purchase their own copy of a book or magazine from a store like Borders.
Though I agree with the author that the digital library should not be consider a replacement for the real library and rather a supplement, time seems to be indicating otherwise. Mann points to how a fraction of the world’s printed collection can be accessed through virtual portals, but that was 8 years ago. Since he wrote this article, websites an online-accessible databases have proliferated and saturated the Internet, bringing more and more of the world’s print information to a distance of only a few clicks. The most recent example I can think of is this Google Book Project initiative, which brilliantly began with various universities’ libraries and their collected publications with expired copyrights. Even the UW has jumped on the Google bandwagon. I see two potential paths for the years to come: either people will recognize how valuable accessing these newly scanned materials is and the project will expand in scope and popular involvement, or people won’t really care and so they won’t take up the fight of establishing copyright ownership and the project will expand in scope. I use the Internet mainly as a starting point when researching information on a topic, since the UW’s search engines are easy to navigate from the comfort of home, but I often end up going to the library to patch holes in my online research or to do more thorough research with the available resources or librarians. Hopefully society will recognize library’s essential role in free information provision before we all preemptively switch to an entirely electronic way of life and the libraries wither away from neglect. I’m with the majority of the people studied in the first article when I say that the disappearance of the library would be a great loss felt by the whole community, not just a few of the current generations, but certainly all the future generations who would never experience the quiet oasis of opportunity that a library contains, if only you should choose to take advantage of its resources.
posted by lwinkle at 8:49 PM
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