Coffee and a Byte: the future of libraries
June 2017
Libraries are one of my very favouritest things ever. Always have been. Always will be.
They’re one of the few true civic spaces left — anyone can come into them, and find a warm, dry place where they can interact with others, have quiet time, learn and share. And so much more. They’re our community hubs, and will have an ever more*, not less, important part to play in the social fabric of our lives and places.
In 2017 I was invited to be on a panel for the National Library of New Zealand’s ‘Coffee and a Byte’ series, discussing the future of libraries, and specifically that library.
I’ve kept meaning to transcribe and post my notes for the discussion, and I’ve been spurred to finally get it done by the temporary (but unlikely to be brief) closing of the Wellington Central Library, and a stunning interview about libraries and other civic infrastructure I listened to as I walked my dog this morning through the tiny country town in which I now live.
Given I was talking to librarians and archivists, and on a panel with them, my contributions often took the form of questions. Soooo many questions.
So here goes. If anyone would like me to turn it into a properly formed piece of prose, do let me know :)
The brief
What would the National Library (in Wellington, NZ) look like if it didn’t have a physical presence? Is it only about words and reading, about photos and sounds and data and metadata?
Consultation history for the Library’s 2030 strategic direction (2016)
My thoughts, mostly in the form of questions
“Libraries should not be ivory towers but should, on the contrary, reach out to the community…”
— David Jenkins, 1952
How can libraries, especially the National Library, support the NZ government’s aims around openness, transparency and accountability — the three pillars of open government) — especially given we’re signed up to the Open Government Partnership (OGP)?
Libraries also work on less politically appealing things like collection preservation, history — the real vs the ‘nice’ or even ‘official’.
To what extent is the National Library, given the above, an independent (politically) organisation?
A dystopian future vision: museums, empty of people both physically and virtually (ie online).
A more hopeful future vision: libraries can claim and hold a unique set of functions in the new world(s) we’re building. They can act as a mediator between existing ‘stores culture’ and the recreation of new culture and knowledge.
It’s worth reminding people here that new technology doesn’t replace older forms: it simply adds to them. eBooks and eBook readers haven’t replaced paper books, for example.
Andrew Green makes the distinction between archivists as ‘selectivist’ and librarians as ‘comprehensionist’.
[Editors note: I’ve since also heard people describe archives as more about being closed (to protect the artefacts, etc), and libraries more about being as open and sharing as possible, but that the two are increasingly merging.]
Given these two roles — archive vs library: where does / should the National Library include interpretive, contextual or other additional information?
Certainly, it should support scholarship — but not just amongst academics. This includes:
• collection — building
• better metadata than Google, etc
• partnerships with research institutions to both create and collect materials.
One could see the National Library, then, as “an agency for translating mass (its collections of stored knowledge) into energy (study, learning and artistry), and energy back again into mass”**. Libraries are ways to achieve conversations across space and time.
But how do we encourage the National Library to be seen as a _public_ institution? And should we? I’d argue yes, and emphatically so.
How can we make it accessible for people like me — non-expert, non-academic people who’re still interested in learning and browsing? Could we have — for non-physical access:
• links to materials
• online ‘reading rooms’
• pointers and curation — how can we guide rather than overwhelm or constrain people?
And if the National Library becomes purely digital, should its focus be:
• research?
• exhibitions?
• access?
• promotion of collections?
Does ‘digital’ mean no physical spaces at all to gather in? Is _one_ physical space necessary, or, perhaps, enough?
Answers and thoughts from other panelists
The richer the metadata, the better — it helps people use, or decide not to use, the material.
A digital approach could help resilience, as one could collect / showcase more. One could also offer more products and services. And it might help with auditing, and protecting the authenticity and integrity of materials.
Another thought: what about a move from the digital back to the physical sometime in the future?
And how do we deal with digital materials made for single use? Or digital materials which have been made to be impermanent in nature (eg some forms of art, etc)?
Where does digital surpass the physical? It’s not just about a building. And we should remember it’s about _access_ as much as the material, Just because people are in the room (literally or metaphorically) doesn’t mean they have access to the tools and knowledge to access material.
So how can patrons help the National Library? And are its current patrons, the only people who could be in the future?
An ideal digital collection is one that gets better the more people use it, rather than decaying (as happens in the physical world).
Of course, the elephant in the room is copyright. How do digitised materials differ from those which were born digital? And how do we disentangle form and content?
Libraries need to advocate on behalf of the public good, against the copyright lobby. [Editor’s note: this preceded the infamous ‘replace libraries with Amazon bookstores’ incident.]
And with limited resources, how do we priorities what to digitise?
There are also the concepts of bulk vs boutique, and inform vs museological (the artefacts themselves).
“The connections between things are more important than the things themselves.”
— famous quotation from [source forgotten].
[Editor’s note: as a network thinker myself, this makes me immensely happy.]
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References and other reading links goodness
* Properly funded, of course. It’s _vital_ that this happens. We can’t keep expecting them to hold our societies and most vulnerable people up, while stripping them. Talk to your local politicians today!
** I drew muchly on Andrew Green’s wonderful The future of national libraries and archives [PDF 107 KB].
I also did a scan of what modern libraries worldwide were building in terms of community and shared spaces — super inspiring, and great to see places like newly-built Tūranga central library in Christchurch as an example of this.
