After the amazing experience of Library Camp UK last October, I was really ridiculously excited about attending this mini event in Manchester. Even an England batting collapse an hour before the 'unconference' afternoon was due to start could not dampen my enthusiasm, and so it was that I was the first person there save the wonderful organizers, my special networking earrings dangling from my lobes.
In the weeks before the day of the camp I had considered pitching a session on the wiki, but a massive flurry of likemindedness had seen the site inundated with notions similar to those that had been swimming, ill-disciplined, within my head, so it felt unnecessary to add to what seemed ample content: the sessions grid was satisfactorily filled to the point that choosing which session to attend was never an easy choice. Presented below is a summary of the four sessions I attended (in no particular order), liberally and indiscernibly sprinkled with some of my own thoughts.
Session 1 - "We're all doomed! Sustainability literacy, ecoliteracy and resilience"
@danpgrace set things going with this session on community resilience that followed from his recent dissertation (as a starting point on the subject one might do worse than "Community Resilience as a Metaphor, Theory, Set of Capacities, and Strategy for Disaster Readiness" by Norris et al). In short, when bad things happen, a community is more resilient to those bad things if its members have a sense of equality. From a libraries point of view this resilience can be supported via localized services, taking advantage of local knowledge and local coping strategies. Different areas need different things in their library, and the extent to which the library's provision matches those needs varies from place to place. A community's meagre capital is all too often lost to businesses from outside that community, and retaining that capital, be it financial capital or some form of social capital, is a key goal.
Where can one go to access the internet for free or find a quiet place to study? An internet café or a pub with free wi-fi will charge you the ground-rent of a cuppa or a pint. The library, on the other hand, is a free municipal study space offering an almost sacred peace and quiet in a secular public environment. The library is about much more than books: it's about learning and exploration. You might even envisage a library without any books: a community space determined by its users.
This got us to thinking about the place we were in right now: Manchester Digital Laboratory, aka MadLab. Here's how their website describes the venue:
A local library for local people: we'll have no trouble here.
Where can one go to access the internet for free or find a quiet place to study? An internet café or a pub with free wi-fi will charge you the ground-rent of a cuppa or a pint. The library, on the other hand, is a free municipal study space offering an almost sacred peace and quiet in a secular public environment. The library is about much more than books: it's about learning and exploration. You might even envisage a library without any books: a community space determined by its users.
This got us to thinking about the place we were in right now: Manchester Digital Laboratory, aka MadLab. Here's how their website describes the venue:
"It’s a space you can get together with like-minded individuals and work on your urban gardening, crochet, hacking, programming, media arts, filmmaking, animating project without worrying that you’re in a library, coffee shop, pub or other unsuitable venue."
- About MadLab.
It's interesting to note that MadLab is trying to set up its own book collection having acquired a number of donated texts. You create a community space like this and people come to it. One of the ways you might expand it is through the addition of a library. Effectively this is the reverse of the process by which a library might develop into a community space. There's a circle here and it's a virtuous one.
At this point Dan brought us back down to Earth, invoking the social theory of Manuel Castells: global businesses pursue a one-size-fits-all model of delivery, and produce a kind of cultural homogeneity. The influence of such models extends within the library and may be seen as the inspiration behind projects such as the introduction of self-service technology (Tescos have this, so why don't we?). The problem is that such systems have a potentially negative impact upon the community being served: an effective function of the library is that people come in, talk to one another, engage with staff and build relationships (perhaps the only human contact they'll have all day). If they're coming in, interacting with a machine and not having anyone to talk to, that is isolating and detrimental to community adhesion.
Such embracing of technology poses another problem: the more we switch to digital systems, the more we balance our libraries upon an inverted pyramid at the bottom of which sits our energy supply. Even a ruthless business looking to mechanise and de-staff cannot help but be alert to the rising cost of fuel. We must be aware of the potential for redundancy in new technology (material redundancy as well as staff redundancy): The 925 year old Domesday Book is considerably more readable than the 25 year old Domesday Disc. Faced with a course between the Scylla of digital rights and the Charybdis of an impending energy crisis, we should not rush to sacrifice our paper holdings.
By accident or design, the adoption of technology serves to alienate those who do not have access to that technology. This may be the same mentality that sees QR codes as a hip, cool way of disseminating information without considering the fact that much of the population do not own smart-phones and are therefore disenfranchised, or the more cynical attempts to enforce a 'progress' born of economic expediency (ending cheque payments or shutting down analogue radio services, perhaps). A particularly crucial example of this technological tyranny is the online job application. From my own personal perspective, online job applications have the capacity to be wonderful things: no longer do I have to print out an umpteen-page-long application form, work out the right postage, and allow a sufficient period of time for it to work its way through the Royal Mail; now I can do it online in my back-bedroom at the last minute. But then I am a pampered middle-class type with a back-bedroom and a computer and access to the internet. I've also grown up with information technology, having got my first 8-bit computer when I was four. For me, online applications are a convenience. For someone of lesser means they are a pain in the bottom, and a pain that, as we have already seen, requires the pile cream of a library. So it is that we have to facilitate what is in effect an artificially created need. Quite how we go about this was the subject of Session 3:
Session 3 - "Show or do?"
By accident or design, the adoption of technology serves to alienate those who do not have access to that technology. This may be the same mentality that sees QR codes as a hip, cool way of disseminating information without considering the fact that much of the population do not own smart-phones and are therefore disenfranchised, or the more cynical attempts to enforce a 'progress' born of economic expediency (ending cheque payments or shutting down analogue radio services, perhaps). A particularly crucial example of this technological tyranny is the online job application. From my own personal perspective, online job applications have the capacity to be wonderful things: no longer do I have to print out an umpteen-page-long application form, work out the right postage, and allow a sufficient period of time for it to work its way through the Royal Mail; now I can do it online in my back-bedroom at the last minute. But then I am a pampered middle-class type with a back-bedroom and a computer and access to the internet. I've also grown up with information technology, having got my first 8-bit computer when I was four. For me, online applications are a convenience. For someone of lesser means they are a pain in the bottom, and a pain that, as we have already seen, requires the pile cream of a library. So it is that we have to facilitate what is in effect an artificially created need. Quite how we go about this was the subject of Session 3:
Session 3 - "Show or do?"
@afeitar pitched this session which took its inspiration from a blog post by Simon Barron. Should we spoon-feed our patrons with all that they desire or leave them to fend for themselves? When somebody who has never used a computer before comes into our library and asks us to sign them up for an email account, or do some internet shopping for them, or fill out an online job application, we are likely to refuse them: it would be immoral for us to fill in their job application given that its completion implies some level of computer literacy inherent in the application process, but even to help them do their shopping is an unjustifiable use of our valuable time. There are certain patrons who are very good at getting our attention, often at the expense of those less confident or less willing to request our assistance, but necessarily we must consider computer literacy in the same terms that we treat...um...literacy: if we are lucky there may be one-to-one computer lessons to which we can direct people, in the same way that we may be able to offer adult literacy courses.
But people may not be coming to the library in the hope of getting trained. They are coming to simply get something done. And if we cannot oblige them they are going to go away unhappy, chuntering to themselves and everyone they meet about how rubbish we are. And this makes us sad.
That problems of information literacy appear in the academic as well as the public sector seem to demonstrate a lack of adequate information literacy training in the crowded school curriculum. In a results-driven secondary education it is hardly surprising that students are failing to make what becomes a vast intellectual leap to independent thought. With all this in mind, we tried to come up with some ways in which we might infiltrate the education system:
The environment has changed. A school research exercise on China, say, would have seen the pupils consulting the school library's one book about China (all very easy to assess afterwards). By contrast, typing China into Google produces a claim of "About 4,090,000,000 results" (considerably harder to mark). No real surprise then that there should be little appetite to address in a realistic way the complexities of information literacy in the internet age.
This dramatic shift in available resources is not merely a problem for information literacy tuition. It also raises considerable questions about the role of reference libraries, and that is what we discussed in Session 2:
Session 2 - "Public reference libraries of the future"
@bumsonseats opened this session, as we pondered on whether, in a world where a host of equal or superior reference resources can be found online, the public reference library is anything more than a holding pen for homeless people. There were some bleak landscapes painted: some reference libraries closed as redundant; others where people wee in the corner because the toilets aren't signposted. The duplication of print and online content clearly poses an issue (although we have already examined above how burning our Britannicas may not be the right course of action for our communities), and some suggestions were made about how we might address this:
The reference library isn't just books. It's a physical space; often the hallowed study environment we encountered in the first session. We can make use of that space in inventive and constructive ways: establishing non-fiction reading groups, for instance. This question of use of space was something we explored in more depth in Session 4:
Session 4 - "Library Spaces"
@trine3m introduced this final session, by which point we were all very stuffed with cake. Short of changing libraries into cake shops, what ideas did we have about the function of our library spaces? A collection of books, an archive, a repository; a study space, a community forum? I personally see a growing divide between the book side of libraries and the space side of libraries (a duality we encountered in the first session). This is, in part, informed by my experience of 24 hour opening in academic libraries: the attraction at night-time seems not to be the books so much as the spaces and the computers: the library becomes a hang-out, a study and a computer room, and one could envisage dedicated common-rooms, studies or IT labs being just as successful by moonlight. If we open, they will come.
Just as such academic libraries have gained a near monopoly on accessible campus study space, so public libraries hold a near-monopoly on free public space, and that's a nice thing for us to have. But public libraries are seldom as big as academic libraries, and are therefore unable to offer quite the same variety of environments. An academic library may have a silent study, a quiet study, group study rooms, expansive computer suites... a public library might be lucky to have two rooms.
How we use those rooms is the tricky bit. We might have a whole host of bold ideas about community engagement: bike fixing workshops, 3D printer clubs, computer courses, advice sessions for council services, clinical and behavioural therapy workshops and the likes, but we have to juggle them with the demand for a reading environment, study spaces and books. The aspiration is for a place where people feel comfortable and where they are given the confidence to explore new worlds: coming in and borrowing books, but then leaving their comfort zone and engaging in a spot of bicycle maintenance.
One contributor spoke of how their very traditional library had, as a consequence of spending restraints, drifted into being more of a community centre. Traditionalists had said 'this is a library: it should stay a library', although it was unclear if any of them were alienated by the changes. What was clear is that the new community centre model was a popular one, bringing in people who weren't coming in before.
I must confess that this concerns me. There is, after all, a baby in our bathwater. It appears that while communities may once have had a village hall, this venue has been lost in one way or another, and now the library is taking on that role. This is a good thing: village halls are a good thing; but we must be careful to ensure that while we assume the functions of a village hall we do not stop being a library. Libraries are important too. The value of the village hall was neglected, and the hall got sold off, but now perhaps the value of the library is being neglected too, and while the hall is just a space (a space that might well be aptly invented elsewhere), the library requires infrastructure: infrastructure that cannot so easily be acquired.
My local library, like many in my local authority, is part of a larger "Community Resource Centre": the one building combines the village hall (complete with bar and exhibition space), an activities room, and a lending library with all the usual bits and bobs of a local library. This is a good state of affairs: a purpose built combination of the library and village hall functions. It shows what can be achieved, although it requires the space to do it, and space costs money. There's a reason village halls were sold off in the first place.
Having depressed ourselves slightly with talk about the current situation in public libraries funding, we headed off to the pub, where I had some fantastic conversations (and several pints of beer) with the likes of @spoontragedy, @misswizzie (who, it turns out, works just up the road from me), and @theatregrad, among others. It was, as anticipated, a brilliant afternoon (and evening), and considerable thanks and plaudits go to @bumsonseats, @shedsue, and @richardveevers for organizing it.
I'll wrap up this post with a link to a film made for Sheffield City Council Libraries Committee in 1956, entitled "Books In Hand". A lot of what we discussed in the sessions about space and engagement put me in mind of this film, and it's a reminder that a lot of what we do or talk about doing is stuff that, to some extent or other, we've done or tried to do before...
But people may not be coming to the library in the hope of getting trained. They are coming to simply get something done. And if we cannot oblige them they are going to go away unhappy, chuntering to themselves and everyone they meet about how rubbish we are. And this makes us sad.
That problems of information literacy appear in the academic as well as the public sector seem to demonstrate a lack of adequate information literacy training in the crowded school curriculum. In a results-driven secondary education it is hardly surprising that students are failing to make what becomes a vast intellectual leap to independent thought. With all this in mind, we tried to come up with some ways in which we might infiltrate the education system:
- Get teachers on board during their PGCE, before their way of thinking has 'fossilized'.
- Manage and promote responsible use of social media within schools rather than merely blocking it and driving it 'underground'.
- Avoid the need for spoon-feeding of sources in research exercises by having pupils research easy-to-mark scientific facts rather than opinion-based humanities topics.
- Engage with local library services!!!
The environment has changed. A school research exercise on China, say, would have seen the pupils consulting the school library's one book about China (all very easy to assess afterwards). By contrast, typing China into Google produces a claim of "About 4,090,000,000 results" (considerably harder to mark). No real surprise then that there should be little appetite to address in a realistic way the complexities of information literacy in the internet age.
This dramatic shift in available resources is not merely a problem for information literacy tuition. It also raises considerable questions about the role of reference libraries, and that is what we discussed in Session 2:
Session 2 - "Public reference libraries of the future"
@bumsonseats opened this session, as we pondered on whether, in a world where a host of equal or superior reference resources can be found online, the public reference library is anything more than a holding pen for homeless people. There were some bleak landscapes painted: some reference libraries closed as redundant; others where people wee in the corner because the toilets aren't signposted. The duplication of print and online content clearly poses an issue (although we have already examined above how burning our Britannicas may not be the right course of action for our communities), and some suggestions were made about how we might address this:
- Replace standard reference texts with more specialized materials where the overlap with the internet is less profound, perhaps targeting special interest groups via social media and other means.
- Make reference stock loanable: material practicalities of expensive stock aside, there's nothing more infuriating than finding an interesting book and not being able to take it with you, and so much reference stock is actually pretty useless unless you can take it out.
- Scrap the reference department altogether and become Wikipedia editors to ensure veracity of content. Less flippantly, facilitate sessions for contributing to Wikipedia and other web resources, and assist users with the creation of online content.
There is no article on Bob Carolgees in the Encylcopædia Britannica.
The reference library isn't just books. It's a physical space; often the hallowed study environment we encountered in the first session. We can make use of that space in inventive and constructive ways: establishing non-fiction reading groups, for instance. This question of use of space was something we explored in more depth in Session 4:
Session 4 - "Library Spaces"
@trine3m introduced this final session, by which point we were all very stuffed with cake. Short of changing libraries into cake shops, what ideas did we have about the function of our library spaces? A collection of books, an archive, a repository; a study space, a community forum? I personally see a growing divide between the book side of libraries and the space side of libraries (a duality we encountered in the first session). This is, in part, informed by my experience of 24 hour opening in academic libraries: the attraction at night-time seems not to be the books so much as the spaces and the computers: the library becomes a hang-out, a study and a computer room, and one could envisage dedicated common-rooms, studies or IT labs being just as successful by moonlight. If we open, they will come.
Just as such academic libraries have gained a near monopoly on accessible campus study space, so public libraries hold a near-monopoly on free public space, and that's a nice thing for us to have. But public libraries are seldom as big as academic libraries, and are therefore unable to offer quite the same variety of environments. An academic library may have a silent study, a quiet study, group study rooms, expansive computer suites... a public library might be lucky to have two rooms.
How we use those rooms is the tricky bit. We might have a whole host of bold ideas about community engagement: bike fixing workshops, 3D printer clubs, computer courses, advice sessions for council services, clinical and behavioural therapy workshops and the likes, but we have to juggle them with the demand for a reading environment, study spaces and books. The aspiration is for a place where people feel comfortable and where they are given the confidence to explore new worlds: coming in and borrowing books, but then leaving their comfort zone and engaging in a spot of bicycle maintenance.
One contributor spoke of how their very traditional library had, as a consequence of spending restraints, drifted into being more of a community centre. Traditionalists had said 'this is a library: it should stay a library', although it was unclear if any of them were alienated by the changes. What was clear is that the new community centre model was a popular one, bringing in people who weren't coming in before.
I must confess that this concerns me. There is, after all, a baby in our bathwater. It appears that while communities may once have had a village hall, this venue has been lost in one way or another, and now the library is taking on that role. This is a good thing: village halls are a good thing; but we must be careful to ensure that while we assume the functions of a village hall we do not stop being a library. Libraries are important too. The value of the village hall was neglected, and the hall got sold off, but now perhaps the value of the library is being neglected too, and while the hall is just a space (a space that might well be aptly invented elsewhere), the library requires infrastructure: infrastructure that cannot so easily be acquired.
My local library, like many in my local authority, is part of a larger "Community Resource Centre": the one building combines the village hall (complete with bar and exhibition space), an activities room, and a lending library with all the usual bits and bobs of a local library. This is a good state of affairs: a purpose built combination of the library and village hall functions. It shows what can be achieved, although it requires the space to do it, and space costs money. There's a reason village halls were sold off in the first place.
Having depressed ourselves slightly with talk about the current situation in public libraries funding, we headed off to the pub, where I had some fantastic conversations (and several pints of beer) with the likes of @spoontragedy, @misswizzie (who, it turns out, works just up the road from me), and @theatregrad, among others. It was, as anticipated, a brilliant afternoon (and evening), and considerable thanks and plaudits go to @bumsonseats, @shedsue, and @richardveevers for organizing it.
I'll wrap up this post with a link to a film made for Sheffield City Council Libraries Committee in 1956, entitled "Books In Hand". A lot of what we discussed in the sessions about space and engagement put me in mind of this film, and it's a reminder that a lot of what we do or talk about doing is stuff that, to some extent or other, we've done or tried to do before...
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