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Misconceptions about libraries
22 December 2009
[indent]
I normally don't engage in he-said-I-said-he-said with other bloggers. That's a bit incestuous for each of us to be commenting on one another's opinions. But I was directed to read a comment on realtor Rick Crouch's blog* that seemed to demand a response. Not for whether or not we agree on an issue; more that it highlights some commonly held misconceptions about an institution dear to my heart: the library.
Rick was commenting on the new Collingwood library - a project approved by the previous council (well, some of us - the current mayor didn't approve of spending the money on a library, nor did Councillor Edwards). The building not only provides a much-needed expansion for the facility, but also will house the town's growing building and planning departments. And it's also coming in about $1.7 million under budget, from what I recall of the recent presentation by Ron Martin.
But that's not what caught my eye. Rick was concerned about the money spent on the building, but in his comments he attacks the purpose of libraries. That always puts me on the defensive.
He wrote:
First, some history as I recall it. The library board wrote a report in 1985 stating that, according to the space alloted to libraries under the province's standards (a per-foot allowance based on population), our library would be reach capacity in 1990. After that time, it would need to either expand or move to accommodate growing demands on its services and programs, and to house its expanding collection.
The current library is approximately 10,000 sq. ft. According to the provincial requirements, based on usage and our population,** we should have had at least 15,000-17,000 sq. ft. by now. The new library will be approx. 20,000 sq. ft, giving it room and space to grow for the next decade or so - the same time during which Collingwood will be a provincial growth node for the county, so will see increasing demands.
The library board presented plans for expansion and growth to councils several times after 1990. I've been on the board since 1992 (91?) and I remember plans for a move to the former By-the-Bay restaurant (now the courthouse beside Sobey's) - squashed by council. To build a new building beside the museum - squashed by NIMBY efforts of the neighbours. To move into the federal building - first rejected by the board for its heritage restrictions and parking problems, then resurrected but rejected by council when the multi-use facility funding it was tied to was defeated. To the former Admiral Collingwood school - rejected by the board because it was a problematic building, full of asbestos and age-related problems. To an expansion onsite - approved by council in 2006 (not by the current mayor, though), then changed by council (not at the library's request) to a new building on the Simcoe Street site.
By sheer numbers, based on well-documented statistics recording the number of people who use the library, our library is the most popular, most well-used public facility in this community. Yet it was not able to get a much-needed expansion from 1990 until 2006. Sports facilities, recreation facilities, even the museum have seen upgrades and expansions in that time. But not the library. This new building is long, long overdue.
It's not merely about getting people through the doors - a head count is nothing more than a statistic. The library is about providing services and support for them and the whole community. It's an essential, integral institution, without which we'd be much poorer, socially, intellectually and culturally. People use the library because it meets their needs, not merely to get in out of the rain.
Only someone who hadn't been in a library for the last couple of decades would think it's just about books. That's like saying an arena is just about hockey. Or a park is just about grass. Sure books are a core feature, but the library is far more organic. The library does many, many things and serves many different needs.
First it houses the local history and genealogy collections, as well as being the regional repository for government documents. These are essential functions for both residents and governments. While the museum is also an archive for local history, it is less a user archive. It is not organized in the same way, nor does it contain the same books, records and databases. The museum is not organized for genealogical research at all.
Second, it's the largest facility for public space in town. Local service clubs, groups, non-profit organizations, and associations depend on it for their meeting space. It's also the largest public art gallery space in town. There is no other place where dozens of local artists or arts groups can show their works. The library has become focal point of community arts and culture and a crucial part of our cultural landscape.
There's an informal kid's chess club that meets once a month in the library. Without the library's space, it wouldn't exist. Ditto with a dozen other groups, service clubs and organizations. The library is their only available, affordable meeting place (more so now that the schools charge excessive rents for space usage, thus closing off taxpayer-funded facilities from public use).
The library is also a program centre - it hosts programs for children and adults. Many single-parent families depend on the library for programs for young children. These help develop literacy, social and creative skills. Many adults use the library programs for anything from art to music to meditation. And they share the space with the art gallery, so the uses can cross-pollinate.
The library's public space is at such a premium that if you want to book it, you better plan months in advance. The new library will provide much more - accessible - public space for art, meetings, programs, events and entertainment. Plus there will be larger spaces for meetings and display, which opens the venue for larger groups.
Many seniors use the library as their regular meeting place. They relax with the newspapers, chat, and socialize.*** The new library will provide a better, more welcoming space for them. We're still debating the business of including a small coffee/tea wagon in the library.
But it will also be a welcoming place for a younger audience - teens in particular. Where would you rather see them: gathering to do homework in a library, or standing in front of a main street coffee shop? We should do everything in our power to encourage literacy and reading in teens. The new library will help that goal.
The library provides a large collection of CDs, DVDs and video tapes for members to borrow free of charge. This is a real benefit to families who can't afford to rent movies, and to people who want to watch something different that the usual pop-entertainment at the video stores (like Shakespeare's plays, for example). They also have a lot of audio books to lend, from fiction to teaching. Want to learn Spanish while you're on a long road trip? Try the library. And better yet: you can borrow them free (with a library card, of course).
The new library will have a computer workroom - privately funded - with computers and recording equipment, so students can create music and video. The library will contribute to developing the talents of future artists and performers. Plus there will be more computers connected to the Internet so anyone can surf, do homework, create reports, etc.
So popular is our library that some neighbouring municipalities have agreements where they pay an annual fee to allow their residents to use our library. That helps bring people from outside into the community, where they may also stop to shop and eat. So the library contributes to our local economic wellbeing.
As for digital books - first, Google's plan is in legal contention with copyright laws and can't simply digitize what it wants. And if Rick actually checked their progress, he'd find that most of their books can't be printed (done, perhaps, to encourage sales of hand-held devices like Kindle, which require electronic books be leased for reading).
Sure you can read a lot of books online, but if they can't be printed, they're of limited use for research and homework. Especially if you don't have a computer at home (and the use of the library's computers shows many families still don't have one, or lack high-speed access). There's a place for e-books; but they won't replace printed works, rather they will supplement them. And the library will have access to both formats.
Google's ambitious project also threatens both traditional publishing (by killing revenues). It also contributes to the fallacy that the Net is free, so therefore all rights of artists, musicians, authors and publishers should be ignored. Using Google as a model for book publishing or libraries is kind of like using an avalanche as the model for slope management on a ski hill. Google may bury us, but it isn't necessarily the best future for literacy or publishing.
As vast as the Internet is, a huge amount of the material online is - to be blunt - crap. There's vast amounts of codswallop about Atlantis, the Mayan "apocalypse", creationism, astrology, palmistry, conspiracy theories and alien abductions, not to mention the garbage: racism, pornography and simply wrong stuff. Using the Net as your sole source of data is like using the daily newspaper astrology column as your source for news and decision-making. Not to mention the Net is the main cause of the decay of English (but that's food for another post).
Book publishing still retains the respectability that the Net lacks. Rather telling are the publishing stats of the last 10 years. What the Internet has done is not deter people from writing or publishing books, but rather created a larger market for them. The last few years have seen record-breaking numbers of books being published - in great part because online stores offer new markets and a wider audience. And books are, generally, written in much better English than anything online. There are few editors on the Net.
As for the library's business model: it's doing quite well, thank you. It has come in on or just under budget for several years. If you turn a library into a for-profit enterprise, it will die, and everything associated with it - programs, groups, public art, socializing - will shrivel and die.
Privatizing libraries is like privatizing health care. A seriously bad idea. Think the private sector can do better than the public sector? Think of Enron. Think of any of the many, poorly-managed, inept and corrupt financial corps and banks that caused the financial meltdown of 2008 (and are still trying to suck the life out of the recovery through massive, egregious salaries and bonus packages). Think of the American auto companies that had to be bailed out with tax dollars to keep from bankruptcy. Think of the private American health care system versus the public health care system here in Canada, or in the UK, Sweden or Cuba. The private sector doesn't offer many exemplary role models for anything I'd want in a library.
Libraries were created to expand literacy, learning and knowledge for the wider masses, for the public. Private libraries - they exist - offer the opposite: restricted access, limited use, fees for service, and are often tightly focused on particular topics, events, companies or individuals.
Libraries are about broader learning. They are about sharing. They are about common goals and the greater good. Libraries are public institutions because literacy and learning are too important to slough off on some private agency, and expect that - like banks or auto companies - they will serve the public good rather than their own interests.
According to one librarian blogger, the Boston Public Library building boasts: "The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty." An educated, literate public, is better capable of making decisions, understanding issues and participating in democracy. So libraries are defenders of our democracy, too.
There's a very good piece on the 'purpose of the library' here that begins,
And I haven't even got to the library's ukulele-lending program, which allows aspiring musicians to learn to play an instrument at no cost! Or touched on the crucial role the library plays in offering volunteer and community service opportunities.
If you think of the library as just a building full of books, you're missing the greater part of the picture. ****
~~~~~
* Rick is a former executive with the VOTE group.
** The Statscan figures - 17,290 - not the imaginary numbers in the CN Watson report - based on that fantasy, the library would need to occupy all three floors of the building!
***This use will only increase as our population ages, but incomes for seniors stagnate or fall. Demographics show we already have a higher-than-average number of seniors in this town, and many new home sales are to be to retired people. These are big users - and supporters - of the library.
**** On his own blog, Ian Adams has commented at greater length on Rick's post and made many salient points about taxes and debenture. I was more concerned with commenting on the library issue. Back in September, a poster on the East End Underground asked a similar question: why the new library was being built at all. I responded in a similar vein to the above:
[/indent]
Rick was commenting on the new Collingwood library - a project approved by the previous council (well, some of us - the current mayor didn't approve of spending the money on a library, nor did Councillor Edwards). The building not only provides a much-needed expansion for the facility, but also will house the town's growing building and planning departments. And it's also coming in about $1.7 million under budget, from what I recall of the recent presentation by Ron Martin.
But that's not what caught my eye. Rick was concerned about the money spent on the building, but in his comments he attacks the purpose of libraries. That always puts me on the defensive.
He wrote:
Quote
The new library at $6 million is the largest project mentioned up for debenture in 2010. Sure a new library would be nice but when you have the likes of "Google" currently in the process of digitizing every book ever written, it really makes you wonder if spending money on bricks and mortar to house books is the way to go. I know one thing is certain, if libraries in the past had been run as private enterprise profit centres, the threat of books no longer being required in traditional print for people to borrow would be causing the ACME Library Company (if one existed) to close their doors for good or at least to revise their business model to search out sources of revenue elsewhere.
First, some history as I recall it. The library board wrote a report in 1985 stating that, according to the space alloted to libraries under the province's standards (a per-foot allowance based on population), our library would be reach capacity in 1990. After that time, it would need to either expand or move to accommodate growing demands on its services and programs, and to house its expanding collection.
The current library is approximately 10,000 sq. ft. According to the provincial requirements, based on usage and our population,** we should have had at least 15,000-17,000 sq. ft. by now. The new library will be approx. 20,000 sq. ft, giving it room and space to grow for the next decade or so - the same time during which Collingwood will be a provincial growth node for the county, so will see increasing demands.
The library board presented plans for expansion and growth to councils several times after 1990. I've been on the board since 1992 (91?) and I remember plans for a move to the former By-the-Bay restaurant (now the courthouse beside Sobey's) - squashed by council. To build a new building beside the museum - squashed by NIMBY efforts of the neighbours. To move into the federal building - first rejected by the board for its heritage restrictions and parking problems, then resurrected but rejected by council when the multi-use facility funding it was tied to was defeated. To the former Admiral Collingwood school - rejected by the board because it was a problematic building, full of asbestos and age-related problems. To an expansion onsite - approved by council in 2006 (not by the current mayor, though), then changed by council (not at the library's request) to a new building on the Simcoe Street site.
By sheer numbers, based on well-documented statistics recording the number of people who use the library, our library is the most popular, most well-used public facility in this community. Yet it was not able to get a much-needed expansion from 1990 until 2006. Sports facilities, recreation facilities, even the museum have seen upgrades and expansions in that time. But not the library. This new building is long, long overdue.
It's not merely about getting people through the doors - a head count is nothing more than a statistic. The library is about providing services and support for them and the whole community. It's an essential, integral institution, without which we'd be much poorer, socially, intellectually and culturally. People use the library because it meets their needs, not merely to get in out of the rain.
Only someone who hadn't been in a library for the last couple of decades would think it's just about books. That's like saying an arena is just about hockey. Or a park is just about grass. Sure books are a core feature, but the library is far more organic. The library does many, many things and serves many different needs.
First it houses the local history and genealogy collections, as well as being the regional repository for government documents. These are essential functions for both residents and governments. While the museum is also an archive for local history, it is less a user archive. It is not organized in the same way, nor does it contain the same books, records and databases. The museum is not organized for genealogical research at all.
Second, it's the largest facility for public space in town. Local service clubs, groups, non-profit organizations, and associations depend on it for their meeting space. It's also the largest public art gallery space in town. There is no other place where dozens of local artists or arts groups can show their works. The library has become focal point of community arts and culture and a crucial part of our cultural landscape.
There's an informal kid's chess club that meets once a month in the library. Without the library's space, it wouldn't exist. Ditto with a dozen other groups, service clubs and organizations. The library is their only available, affordable meeting place (more so now that the schools charge excessive rents for space usage, thus closing off taxpayer-funded facilities from public use).
The library's public space is at such a premium that if you want to book it, you better plan months in advance. The new library will provide much more - accessible - public space for art, meetings, programs, events and entertainment. Plus there will be larger spaces for meetings and display, which opens the venue for larger groups.
Many seniors use the library as their regular meeting place. They relax with the newspapers, chat, and socialize.*** The new library will provide a better, more welcoming space for them. We're still debating the business of including a small coffee/tea wagon in the library.
But it will also be a welcoming place for a younger audience - teens in particular. Where would you rather see them: gathering to do homework in a library, or standing in front of a main street coffee shop? We should do everything in our power to encourage literacy and reading in teens. The new library will help that goal.
The library provides a large collection of CDs, DVDs and video tapes for members to borrow free of charge. This is a real benefit to families who can't afford to rent movies, and to people who want to watch something different that the usual pop-entertainment at the video stores (like Shakespeare's plays, for example). They also have a lot of audio books to lend, from fiction to teaching. Want to learn Spanish while you're on a long road trip? Try the library. And better yet: you can borrow them free (with a library card, of course).
The new library will have a computer workroom - privately funded - with computers and recording equipment, so students can create music and video. The library will contribute to developing the talents of future artists and performers. Plus there will be more computers connected to the Internet so anyone can surf, do homework, create reports, etc.
So popular is our library that some neighbouring municipalities have agreements where they pay an annual fee to allow their residents to use our library. That helps bring people from outside into the community, where they may also stop to shop and eat. So the library contributes to our local economic wellbeing.
As for digital books - first, Google's plan is in legal contention with copyright laws and can't simply digitize what it wants. And if Rick actually checked their progress, he'd find that most of their books can't be printed (done, perhaps, to encourage sales of hand-held devices like Kindle, which require electronic books be leased for reading).
Sure you can read a lot of books online, but if they can't be printed, they're of limited use for research and homework. Especially if you don't have a computer at home (and the use of the library's computers shows many families still don't have one, or lack high-speed access). There's a place for e-books; but they won't replace printed works, rather they will supplement them. And the library will have access to both formats.
Google's ambitious project also threatens both traditional publishing (by killing revenues). It also contributes to the fallacy that the Net is free, so therefore all rights of artists, musicians, authors and publishers should be ignored. Using Google as a model for book publishing or libraries is kind of like using an avalanche as the model for slope management on a ski hill. Google may bury us, but it isn't necessarily the best future for literacy or publishing.
As vast as the Internet is, a huge amount of the material online is - to be blunt - crap. There's vast amounts of codswallop about Atlantis, the Mayan "apocalypse", creationism, astrology, palmistry, conspiracy theories and alien abductions, not to mention the garbage: racism, pornography and simply wrong stuff. Using the Net as your sole source of data is like using the daily newspaper astrology column as your source for news and decision-making. Not to mention the Net is the main cause of the decay of English (but that's food for another post).
Book publishing still retains the respectability that the Net lacks. Rather telling are the publishing stats of the last 10 years. What the Internet has done is not deter people from writing or publishing books, but rather created a larger market for them. The last few years have seen record-breaking numbers of books being published - in great part because online stores offer new markets and a wider audience. And books are, generally, written in much better English than anything online. There are few editors on the Net.
As for the library's business model: it's doing quite well, thank you. It has come in on or just under budget for several years. If you turn a library into a for-profit enterprise, it will die, and everything associated with it - programs, groups, public art, socializing - will shrivel and die.
Privatizing libraries is like privatizing health care. A seriously bad idea. Think the private sector can do better than the public sector? Think of Enron. Think of any of the many, poorly-managed, inept and corrupt financial corps and banks that caused the financial meltdown of 2008 (and are still trying to suck the life out of the recovery through massive, egregious salaries and bonus packages). Think of the American auto companies that had to be bailed out with tax dollars to keep from bankruptcy. Think of the private American health care system versus the public health care system here in Canada, or in the UK, Sweden or Cuba. The private sector doesn't offer many exemplary role models for anything I'd want in a library.
Libraries were created to expand literacy, learning and knowledge for the wider masses, for the public. Private libraries - they exist - offer the opposite: restricted access, limited use, fees for service, and are often tightly focused on particular topics, events, companies or individuals.
Libraries are about broader learning. They are about sharing. They are about common goals and the greater good. Libraries are public institutions because literacy and learning are too important to slough off on some private agency, and expect that - like banks or auto companies - they will serve the public good rather than their own interests.
According to one librarian blogger, the Boston Public Library building boasts: "The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty." An educated, literate public, is better capable of making decisions, understanding issues and participating in democracy. So libraries are defenders of our democracy, too.
There's a very good piece on the 'purpose of the library' here that begins,
Quote
The purpose of the Library is to preserve the integrity of civilization.
The Library has a moral obligation to adhere to its purpose despite social, economic, environmental, or political influences. The purpose of the Library will never change.
The Library is infinite in its capacity to contain, connect and disseminate knowledge; librarians are human and ephemeral, therefore we must work together to ensure the Library’s permanence.
The Library has a moral obligation to adhere to its purpose despite social, economic, environmental, or political influences. The purpose of the Library will never change.
The Library is infinite in its capacity to contain, connect and disseminate knowledge; librarians are human and ephemeral, therefore we must work together to ensure the Library’s permanence.
And I haven't even got to the library's ukulele-lending program, which allows aspiring musicians to learn to play an instrument at no cost! Or touched on the crucial role the library plays in offering volunteer and community service opportunities.
If you think of the library as just a building full of books, you're missing the greater part of the picture. ****
~~~~~
* Rick is a former executive with the VOTE group.
** The Statscan figures - 17,290 - not the imaginary numbers in the CN Watson report - based on that fantasy, the library would need to occupy all three floors of the building!
***This use will only increase as our population ages, but incomes for seniors stagnate or fall. Demographics show we already have a higher-than-average number of seniors in this town, and many new home sales are to be to retired people. These are big users - and supporters - of the library.
**** On his own blog, Ian Adams has commented at greater length on Rick's post and made many salient points about taxes and debenture. I was more concerned with commenting on the library issue. Back in September, a poster on the East End Underground asked a similar question: why the new library was being built at all. I responded in a similar vein to the above:
Quote
- The Library is the single most popular, most well-used, most frequented public facility in this community. Statistics show that.
- The town has already put a lot of money into a second ice surface, upgraded the curling club and the arena, built many soccer pitches, expanded trails, built new parks and improved the harbour. We approved a new Contact Centre, skateboard and BMX park and rebuilt outdoor swimming pool at Heritage Park. We've expanded the Curling Club so the outdoor ice rink could use the club's refrigeration system to ensure seasonal ice. We built a massive, lighted, soccer area at Fisher Field. We've built a leash-free dog park. Plus we're helping the Y expand its pool. We've done a great job already on recreational facilities. It was the library's turn for expansion.
- Many non-profit groups and services clubs, local artists and organizations use the library because there is no other public space for meetings or display. And the available space ran out a long time ago. The current library was compromising these important groups' ability to function effectively.
- Library space is based on population. On the province's allocations of sq. footage based on a per-person count, the library reached its limit in 1990. It has been overcrowded and cramped since then, unable to expand its space for public use, its computer area for students or its book collection. The real question should be "why didn't a previous council have the commonsense to approve an expansion or a new building two decades ago when they knew the space had reached its maximum usage?" or “why have successive councils since then refused to expand the library or build a new one when each one was presented with viable proposals for such a project?”
- The Library is heavily used by young families and single parents who can't afford to pay for most daycare or summer camps. They use the library's numerous child and youth programs extensively to give their kids activity, learning, and supervised play time in a safe environment. The current library's programming is severely restricted by its available space but the demand is higher than the space allows the library to accommodate.
- Literacy rates in this area are low (according to federal & provincial stats as well as the recently released “literacy map of Canada.” Many parts of the region have a shockingly low level of literacy. The library is one of the very few institutions that are a bulwark against further degradation and to allow kids to get some learning.
- Demographics show we have a higher-than-average number of seniors in this area, and that percentage is increasing. Many seniors attend the library daily to sit, relax, read the papers and chat in a safe, friendly and no-cost environment. They are heavy users of the library and its services. Current space and collection size limit the library's ability to offer services and space for them.
- Library services like books for shut-ins and seniors who can't come to the facility are already hampered by the lack of space and the collection's size. Space for large print books is already too small.
- The building is also being used for the planning and building departments which are overcrowded and cramped in their current space. The third floor will be dedicated to municipal use to allow those departments to properly and effectively function. Combining the two uses in a new LEED-certified building was an efficient use of space and money.
- It was a good, heritage-friendly, environmentally-sound, community-accessible use of a controversial property that would have been a partially-filled parking lot instead.
It is true, in my experience, that most people who do not recognize the value of libraries are simply out of touch with the services that libraries offer, and the way in which libraries evolve to meet the needs of their members. Often, my reaction is defensive and judgemental. As a library employee, I find it difficult to believe that people have not stepped inside their local library in over a decade or who take library services for granted. Alas, the truth is that the library is often at fault for these misconceptions.
Libraries are not well known for their use in clever marketing strategies. In fact, their marketing strategies are practically non-existent!
Fortunately, the library industry is constantly changing and evolving, and it is beginning to recognize the benefits. Besides, with current technology and programs, it is becoming easier and cheaper to create a brand that can be shared across the media universe.
Having said all this, I must say that I disagree with your comment that "the Net is the main cause of the decay of English." In fact I disagree that there is a "decay" occurring at all. I await your post on the subject in question