blyberg.net » Didn’t I just…?

Steven is right, I’ve been feeling a little feisty lately. There are several reasons that I can think of for that. Part of it is that I’ve had more time to read lately and the things I’ve been reading have been getting my hackles up. So if I come off as a buzz-kill in the coming week or two, feel free to ignore me, write scathing and inflammatory comments, send me key lime cake, or whatever you deem necessary.

Anyway, Steven linked to a WSJ article today while I simultaneously received an email from my Dad who forwarded the same link “in light of” my recent blog post. (Better to read it sooner rather than later, or you’ll have to wait until you can find it on EBSCO)

The main thrust of this short piece is that a) we’re too materialistic to borrow material (we would rather buy it) and b) people are using the internet instead of the library.

I still think that the age disparity that Zaslow talks about in his article is more a function of a fundamental culture shift in our society rather than due to a set of tangible culprits (like the internet and rampant materialism). As a group, we’re actually fairly adept at negotiating the net. The ability to move about in that realm is not our problem. Our problem is that we haven’t come up with a cohesive strategy to prove our worth to society. Zaslow writes:

It’s true that older Internet-phobes are missing out on [the internet]. But many tech-savvy kids never experience the library as a place for serendipitous discovery. “The library is about delayed gratification,” says Dr. Levine. “It’s about browsing through shelves of biographies. ‘Do I want Jackie Robinson? Franklin Roosevelt? What will I do when I grow up?’ The library slows you down and makes you think.”

I’m afraid to say that delayed gratification is not something we can sell and traditional notions of “attention” have been shattered–we are no longer entitled to have our youth “pay” attention. We need to earn their attention. The sooner we realize that, the better. I’ve often thought (and I’m sure I’m not alone) that the future of libraries rest in the hands of our children’s librarians. It’s actually quite poignant how that army of burden has been routed to a group of librarians who probably never considered that they would be given that kind of responsibility.

Of course that doesn’t mean we discount everyone else. It simply means that we have to indoctrinate our youth with a new sense of what the library is, what it does, and what it’s there for. And that will be a radically different set of virtues than the ones our parents enjoyed.

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12 Comments so far

Wait - your DAD reads your blog??? My dad, wonderful dad that he is, doesn’t know what a blog is, and probably has no earthly idea what I even do (though I’ve explained it more than once).

That’s cool!

He reads it, though both my parents have admitted to not knowing what I’m talking about half the time and they certainly don’t know what I “do”..

>”But many tech-savvy kids never experience the library as a place for serendipitous discovery.”

I’d almost reverse this. The problem isn’t that kids no longer want serendipity–that they’re now task focused–but that the web is a *better* place for serendipitous discovery. Sure, you can zero in on something you want, but everything is linked horizontally in a million ways.

My goal, and I suspect you share in it with SOPAC, is to bring some of the magic of serendipitous discovery to the OPAC. Instead of an ugly machine for finding one exact book, I want the OPAC to parktake of the rich, linked, loopy, serendipitous madness that is the web.

The library *might* let you browse a list of biographies assembled together by one criterion. LibraryThing let’s you shift and pivot—famous black people? famous ball players? books about the dodgers? sports history? and spiraling outward–people interested in these topics, authors who write about them, reviews, ratings, related Wikipedia entries, and out to the wild wild web.

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And that will be a radically different set of virtues than the ones our parents enjoyed.
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Well said. Couldn’t agree with you more. I’m tempted to drop the word “radical” but figured that it’s radical change that’s needed to stay relevant, as these youths become the adults of tomorrow (but not necessarily disruptive change though).

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I find that the social commentary at WSJ usually measures a mile wide by one inch deep, in this editorial was conformed to type. Beyond the unsubstantiated assertions and generalizations, the author seemed to imply that kids are BUYING BOOKS and that’s BAD. If kids today spend their money on books, I think that’s wonderful. It is also a little unexpected to find the WSJ, of all publications, editorializing against materialism.

Speaking as a librarian who spends a lot of money in bookstores, I can tell you that the two are not mutually exclusive. Many people come to the library with a list of books that they browsed in the store and want to borrow. It also works the other way. Many a parent purchases books that their children found in the library, because children want to read their favorite books over and over …

Libraries face many challenges, but people buying books is not one of them. In fact, I read somewhere that book stores and libraries have a mutually beneficial relationship. Maybe I read it in WSJ ….

You’re right on with your comment about libraries. I grew up with book loving parents and we went frequently to the libraries. I am glad to say that my son, is also a book geek. We went into a huge used bookstore (King Books in Detroit, MI) and he said to me when we walked in “I just love the smell of books.” You’ll never get that experience on the ‘net! I do the same thing every time I walk into the library, take a big breath in, and enjoy the smell of books. There’s nothing like it!

No, the experience of the library will not (and already is not) be the same for future generations. I’d like to think that isn’t such a bad thing. Actually, I’ve come to expect that my experiences of just about everything are going to be vastly different from those my son has during his lifetime. But that’s ok.. I don’t want his life experiences to be a clone of mine any more than I want to live life the way my parents and grandparents did.

As for the whole lack of serendipity thing, I guess I see it two ways. One is that I see online elements like tag clouds, related materials, and suggested titles, other new features that offer links to things other than what we searched for as filling that purpose. Maybe I search for one thing, but through these features I can stumble on other stuff just like when browsing in the stacks.

But the other thing I think of is that with the amount of information our little minds have to process nowadays, it’s true that I don’t always have room in my brain for anything else. I want what I searched for the end. So it’s nice that the extra added features I see as adding serendipity back in are extras that I can choose to use or not, depending on my own tastes, habits, and current needs.

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