Everything Changes

My friend is annoyed with her public library. She has been for a while now. About a year ago, they started renovations. The goal was to make the library more of a community space — more computers, meeting rooms, and space in general. I know this because we went to visit her library while some of said renovations were going on, and I picked up a brochure that explained it all to me. I also know this because the grand majority of articles I read during my first year of library school were about the same thing, and that thing was how public libraries were transitioning to community spaces. As soon as she started describing the changes they were making, I knew what was going on.

I tried to explain this to her using all of my best melodramatic buzzwords and phrases — “in a time when the Internet is dominated by Google, libraries are no longer considered a primary information resource”, “libraries have to find a new role in a changing world”, etc. She was unimpressed. She complained that they were getting rid of a lot of books.

“What kind of books?” I asked. “Books people are reading?”

“Non-fiction, mostly.” By non-fiction, she meant reference books and informational books on subjects that would probably not appeal to the grand majority of the residents of an affluent suburb in DuPage County. Basically, books that hadn’t been checked out in a very long time.

I pointed this out to her and asked if she checked out a lot of non-fiction. Her reply was something along the lines of, “But they’re getting rid of the books!”

I understand that. Truly, I do. I have an English degree, and my focus was Victorian literature. I love reading, and I love books. In fact, there are many people out in the world who still love books. The problem is, books have changed. Ebooks have made reading much more convenient. If you still love physical books, you can order them from Amazon and have them delivered right to your door. More importantly, books are no longer the most efficient way to look up factual information. That would be the Internet. So, while most libraries continue to love books, they know they cannot survive on books alone.

I explained this all to her. I told her the story of a public library that had saved itself during the recession by promoting its meeting rooms as spaces for local start-ups to meet. I pointed out that, though all the new computers were in places that once held books, they were also all being used. Clearly, her library knew what its community wanted and needed.

She understood, but she still grumbles from time to time. You can’t please everybody. But then, she was never someone the library had to worry about losing — she’s had her library card since she was a child, and she still goes there multiple times per week to check out books. The changes were not necessarily for her — they were to bring new users into the library. Now, that library is reaching more of the community than it has before. To me, that means they’re doing something right.