On Monday, Adriene Jenik, who is Associate Professor of Computer & Media Arts at UC San Diego, stopped by for what turned into an interesting discussion on the future of libraries. Adriene is a telecommunications media artist who has experimented extensively in virtual performance with projects like Desktop Theater and SPECFLIC, an ongoing “speculative distributed cinema project.”
More recently, she wrote and produced SPECFLIC 2.0, which explores the intersection of digital media, books, and reading. With the help of a large network of collaborating artists, Jenik transformed the Martin Luther King Library in San Jose into a one night only vision of the future called the InfoSphere, where a computerized reference librarian called The Infospherian provides an interface to all the bits of information what anyone might need, and is in charge of issuing and enforcing reading licenses to the public.
Before the group got to discussing how libraries where changing, Adriene and I first discussed how neighborhoods and cities develop; the way growth is encouraged and discouraged in certain areas, and of those who benefit from seeing either scenario play out.
As in the discussion we had about neighborhoods, I am ambivalent towards the way libraries are changing. People use search engines to find information quickly and are less frequently doing research in libraries. In fact, even in libraries computer labs tend to be the most populous rooms. The act of looking through physical books lends itself well to serendipitous discoveries, and while I agree that many of these kinds of experiences may be lost, it’s hard to really know for sure what is gained and what is lost when you’re in the midst of change.
For better or worse, as a tool, the library, as we know it today, appears to have lived out it’s life. In the future, the idea of a library as a museum, as opposed to an active location like a park makes a lot more sense to me. Something will be lost with the transition, that is for sure, and as much of it as possible should be preserved, but it’s hard to see today’s library being able to compete with the technologies of the future in the same way.
What I find bizarre about all this is that when you walk into a Barnes & Noble all the seats are taken, so it seems that “reading buildings” of some sort have some demand. Maybe it’s the social setting or maybe it’s the Starbucks. Actually, that could be the future of the library: a big empty building that people bring their electronic books to so that they can read and drink their coffee in a social setting… quietly.
“No analog book allowed inside library. Please digitize your analog book at the door.”
if:book
A Project of the Institute for the Future of the Book
How odd that you post this while I just posted “Reading Basel”
My father was a graphic designer/artist who studied at Geweber Schule where much Swiss modernist design was born (including that great type face Helvetica) The legend is that books were burned by the Catholic church and Switzerland became a Codex Haven….one of the first LIbararies and Universities was in Basel because they acutally had the paper books.
Anyway….as a result the art of words is very much alive in that town:
/itinplace/archives/2006/10/cadavre_exquis_or_fall_breaks_1.html
Just some quick thoughts on your posting. It’s depressing to read such naive commentary that completely ignores the vital civic roles that libraries actually play in the day-to-day lives of citizens – particularly in our public libraries. The reality is, information costs money – and most good quality information costs even more money. Libraries pay a lot of money to provide services and information to the public that individuals simply cannot afford.
The internet suffices – libraries do more.
Today, librarians aren’t being asked as many of the “ready reference” type questions (What is the population of Cairo?) and get the tougher, more in-depth questions that require more expert training and access to myriad information resources – not available via the internet – but through proprietary systems, in addition to rich print material.
Regarding electronic publication: How will e-book/internet technology ever be able to serve the most disenfranchised in our society? How could a wired world ever fully serve them, or even middle-income populations for that matter? How do we ensure that people continue to be able to afford and have the same ready access to information? Do you realize how much of the Internet is commercial crud?
Libraries have a long, successful and oftentimes ignored history as civic spaces. They will never be “museums”. As far as “library as place goes” – forward-looking library leadership redesign our libraries today to allow for more social networking. Lots of people enjoying hanging out with other people (think of libraries as a “third place” – there’s home, there’s work, then there is the library, bookstore, hometown bar or coffee shop). The idea of libraries as “information commons” is very exciting. As a 30-something librarian, I find the future of libraries to be quite exciting to think about. I don’t envision a museum-like place…but perhaps museums could learn from libraries.
I’ll also venture to say that books are here to stay. Paper is in many ways a superior technology. Think about bananas for a moment. How ingenious is the banana? It already comes with its own packaging, built in. There is a simplicity about bananas that is hard to replicate. I think paper comes close. It’s so simple, yet – combined with printing technology – it is what has allowed society to come so far.
Electronic publishing could, if handled properly, serve society in much the same way…but are we really paying attention? Are we really looking at the information landscape in its entirety when we talk about a democratic/civic information landscape?
eddie said:
> In the future, the idea of a library as a
> museum, as opposed to an active location
> like a park, makes a lot more sense to me.
> Something will be lost with the transition,
> that is for sure, and as much of it as possible
> should be preserved, but it’s hard to see
> today’s library being able to compete with
> the technologies of the future in the same way.
huh?
neighborhood libraries will be the _focal-point_
of the soon-to-be-here digital content explosion.
they’ll be the place where we do print-on-demand,
large-scale burning of mass content onto d.v.d.s,
digitizing of paper legacy-works — especially
those that are locally relevant, since non-local
stuff will get done on a global scale — and a
_host_ of other activities that might require
high-end equipment unaffordable to most people.
what, you think we’ll put the stacks under glass?
charge people to look at how things used to be?
oh please…
heck, no! we’re gonna clear out the paper-books
— once we realize that we can reprint a book
cheaper than we can reshelve it (no kidding!),
so don’t bother to “return” that book, kiddo,
just keep it, since it must mean a lot to you,
what with you requesting an actual hardcopy,
obviously after you previously read it online —
to make room for all the new activities we’ll do.
our libraries will be _beehives_, not “museums”.
sheesh!
-bowerbird
frankly, i hope bowerbird is right. this raises huge questions about the atomization of human experience in the digital age. budgets aside, it seems that libraries could become the focal point of rich social experience — intellectual playgrounds of unimagined delight. but i wonder if this is generational. do bowerbird and i just have fond remembrances of our childhoods in libraries or our adolescence and young adulthood browsing the stacks at our university libraries.
Generational differences must be timeless. If not we would be watching as much television in our old age as we did as kids. Kids are more attracted to visual and audio media. The connected computer is exceptional in its ability to simulate any parent reading medium, or all such media in composite presentations. But I doubt this indicates that the computer screen is well adapted to simulate each parent reading medium in facsimile presentation. (i.e. the print book equivalent)
Printers and scanners are getting cheaper all the time. I doubt they will ever be centralized.
Communication tools are getting better every year. Skype and iChat does the job well for many businesses, couples and families around the world.
Few things will beat direct human interaction. I’ve learned this very directly when collaborating with my partner across the Atlantic. When we visit each other we seem to resolve issues that plague us for months on the train ride from the airport. So I am the first to admit that meeting grounds of some sort will be required for a long time. I think that wondering what these locations will provide is interesting discussion to have now.
The idea that we need to “go somewhere” to get information already seems old fashioned, and the web is less than 20 years old! Teenagers today are being raised with tools of instant communication; cell phones and iTunes makes pay phones and CDs seem old fashioned. People will always meet, and the next wave of innovation, I believe, will be those that help people organize, not in providing a limited resource.
Actually, a concern of mine is that many things will just not digitized because of scale and lack of interest. Many large collections of audio, photo, film and books will never be digitized and effectively disappear from public consciousness. We’re actually seeing this happen right now with old radio shows.
eddie said:
> Printers and scanners are
> getting cheaper all the time.
> I doubt they will ever be centralized.
good point.
but the poor are getting poorer all the time.
been in a library lately? seen the people there
using all the computers? why aren’t they using
their computer at home? maybe because their
home computer isn’t connected via broadband.
maybe they don’t even _have_ a home computer.
hey, it’s possible they don’t even have a _home_.
it’s too easy for comfortable people to forget
completely about those on the bottom rungs…
libraries have always been one place where people
in a bind can pull themselves up by their boostraps.
let’s hope that won’t change. let’s make sure it won’t.
***
continuing on, the “scanners” that are being used
by google and the open content alliance can cost
upwards of $10,000, so it’s not the type of thing
most people are likely to have in their basements.
ditto the “printers” that jason epstein is pushing
that print _and_bind_ a book in a minute or so…
and more to the point, “printers and scanners”
are just equipment. they need to be operated
by people who know about what they’re doing,
and who know how to mesh the product into the
infrastructure of the existing knowledge-base.
it’s clear to me those people will be librarians…
video of that city council meeting? we _could_
slap it up on the web, if we really wanted to have
thousands of people download the 3-hour video.
but it’d make more sense to burn it to d.v.d. and
have people pick up a copy of it at their library…
the same with many other locally-relevant things,
like video of nearby historic places and buildings.
even if we put this stuff on the web, so that people
in other locations can view it, it might be very good
— for economics, convenience, and _persistence_ —
to have physical copies made for the local population,
in particular for classroom-use in the local schools…
even some things like high-school football games,
or poetry slams, or footage from the senior prom,
or the concert given by the choir, might find a
large audience if they were available on d.v.d.
from the neighborhood (or the school) library…
eddie, you yourself talk about content that might
“fall between the cracks” and become lost to us…
how do we prevent that? by putting digitization
equipment and know-how into every community,
that’s how. we have our knowledge infrastructure
here and at work already — neighborhood libraries.
it only makes sense to use it for our info-future.
although it is much too big a topic to tackle here,
let me just say that there is a _huge_ gap in the
way the “internet” has been developed thus far,
and that gap is in relation to local neighborhoods.
when we look at most communication vehicles
— the phone system, newspapers, tv stations —
we find their predominant use is local in nature.
but the focus of the web has been on “worldwide”.
that’s nice — it’s _tremendous_ — but still, we
have shortchanged the local in the bargain, and
there’s really no good reason for that omission.
the phenomenal success of craigslist has been
the one indicator how much we’re missing out.
the other place where the web comes up short is
in providing _synergy_ between online and offline.
again, this is a big part of the magic of craigslist.
but there is _so_ much more that we could, and
_should_, be doing to bring this synergy to life,
and our neighborhood libraries are _vital_ to that.
so it would be quite sad if we weren’t hip to that.
***
at any rate, the idea that the stacks will soon
disappear is even familiar to many librarians.
here’s what lorcan dempsey said recently:
> In a pre-network world, where
> information resources were relatively scarce
> and attention relatively abundant, users
> built their workflow around the library.
> In a networked world, where information
> resources are relatively abundant,
> and attention is relatively scarce,
> we cannot expect this to happen.
> Indeed the library needs to
> think about ways of building its
> resources around the user workflow.
> We cannot expect the user to come
> to the library any more; in fact,
> we cannot expect the user even to
> come to the library Web site any more.
eric schnell picks it up from there with:
> The challenge that academic libraries
> will face very soon is that although
> resources are no longer scarce,
> space is becoming increasingly scarce.
> Chances are that planners are already
> looking at the stacks of materials within
> the walls of many academic libraries
> as dead space. Libraries need to look at
> information commons, small group
> study spaces, and other academic
> support services which could be
> offered within the library in order
> to protect their space.
grok that last part — “to protect their space”.
in other words, “if we insist on using our space
for bookshelves, they’re gonna take it away…”
use it, well, or lose it. _that_ is the reality.
i guess people just don’t seem to appreciate
a good museum any more, know what i mean?
eric continues:
> These new uses of the physical library space
> could bring customers back into the library.
> Maybe they will not be using the library
> as we have grown used to, but maybe they will
> once again find the value of entering our doors.
let’s hope so. let’s make it so.
-bowerbird
bowerbird says:
“been in a library lately? seen the people there
using all the computers? why aren’t they using
their computer at home? maybe because their
home computer isn’t connected via broadband.
maybe they don’t even _have_ a home computer.
hey, it’s possible they don’t even have a _home_.”
Heather says:
“Just some quick thoughts on your posting. It’s depressing to read such naive commentary that completely ignores the vital civic roles that libraries actually play in the day-to-day lives of citizens – particularly in our public libraries. The reality is, information costs money – and most good quality information costs even more money. Libraries pay a lot of money to provide services and information to the public that individuals simply cannot afford.”
These are two great points that I wish I addressed. Thanks.
bowerbird, it sounds like you agree with me and believe that libraries will be dominated by technology. If you recognize that most people in libraries are actually in the computer labs, then you must surely wonder the emphasis that such labs will have in the future. The idea I outlined on my post is something that moves some of the current functions of the library to a new entity, which does not have a name yet, but does not provide all of functions to what we now know to be a “library.” I believe that the word “library” will be reserved for the structure we recognize today and for the actions that it performs, but as those functions spread apart, fewer people will have the need for all the functions, and the complete idea of a library will become less clear.
Just as websites, wikipedia and blogs are redefining the publishing industry, encyclopedias and journalism, the library will also go through more radical changes brought on by reading tools. I do not wish to underplay all the crucial roles that libraries play in society, but I do want question how many of these roles can be performed outside of the library before you begin to lose sense of what a library is? If people do not imagine a library as a place to read, what is a library? The vision I described was not a utopia, it was supposed to be bizarre: A empty buildings with no books? Of course that is not what we imagine to be library. But I also want question whether the actual books are really important to the library. If the library is simply a place that holds ideas, is the format in which the ideas held really important? How important is the medium to the vision?
Heather and bowerbird, I agree with you both that access to computers is very limited and libraries play a crucial role in filling that gap, but is there something inherent about paper that makes things more accessible? I might actually argue that paper makes ideas much more scarce (but i wont now). Currently, the initial cost of the technology is the barrier, but what if the future role of the ‘library’ is provide free access to the technology that allows us to access information?
I’ve worked in multiple community centers. I taught middle aged men and women, often unemployed and sometimes homeless, how to use Word and Excel. I’ve also worked in few after-school programs teaching children from the projects how to use email and I’ve taught rich pre-teens from Long Island how to program expensive robots. So I understand that the divide exists. But, again, if the role of a library is to provide access to the poor, then, to me, the role of the library has again been redefined. Access to information for the underprivileged is very important role, but is that the future role of the library? What then would be the difference between a library and a community center?
If a redefinition of the role of a library is required to fit the needs of society, I think it’s fair to consider those changes.
Thanks for the great discussion all.
Zoos, libraries, museums, hospitals; have you noticed any changes lately? You could attribute all the changes to the advent of computer networks and screen reading…but that might not be the whole story. One momentum is their increasing popularity. They are used more than the home (especially as a workplace) or the neighborhood or even sporting events. Some of the use is virtual, augmented by computer networks and screen based reading. But if you visit a zoo, library, museum or hospital you will also find it changed and changing as a place and as an activity.
I think that one of the reasons that people find the actual visit to one of these social hotspots enlivening is that such a visit does not require constant attention to deletion of extraneous, superficial, interruptive, commercial, chaotic or malevolent information. These hotspots are designed for guided social experience, personalized response, inspiration and revival.
Thanks to Heather and bowerbird for jumping to express the wild future of Libraries! Graceful stances!
“For better or worse, as a tool, the library we know it today appears to have lived out it’s life.”
I find this comment ridiculous on two fronts. If “the library [as] we know it” has “lived out it’s life,” why is it that every library in the world is still circulating thousands–tens of thousands of books, videos and other material? Every library I know of is still doing a booming business of traditional functions. Sure there’s a lot of digital. Sure computer use is important. But, guess what guys, people still read books.
The second point I find ridiculous (even scary) is the assumption that in a future, all-digital world that each individual will be responsible for buying all the hardward and content that they need. It has already been demonstrated that making something digital doesn’t make it free. A lot of people will still want to buy information collectively–through a library system. Many will be unable to buy the hardward necessary to access the information they need. The library as place will continue to exist to provide a base from which people can explore the digital collections.
I won’t try to replicate the excellent discussion that has been going on so far here, but just add that I agree the original post is somewhat naive. In prosperous communities library buildings are thriving. I live and work in Raleigh, NC, a well-educated and relatively affluent (at least parts of it) area. My local library did a complete renovation about 2 years ago and is always filled – and not just the computers. Check out a childrens area. Lots depends on the the people running the place – what kinds of events do they put on? It’s just nice to visit sometimes.
And for my wife and I, even though we could afford to buy all the books we read off of Amazon or from one of the big book stores, we don’t. We don’t need to buy or own everything we read and hence use the library regularly as a source of recreational or pleasure reading (both fiction and nonfiction). That aspect, recreation, always seems to get lost in these discussions when libraries are described solely as information centers and task oriented. That’s not what it is all about.
I’ll keep going to them as long as they exist because it is simply fun and I don’t need to spend. I suspect that there are others out there that feel that way too or the upscale Cameron Village Public Library wouldn’t be filled, including the reading areas and childrens section, every weekend.