PVLD Director's Blog

This very thoughtful talk by Sherry Turkle (thank you to Trent at The Simple Dollar for sharing) is well worth 20 minutes of your time. Once I got over my chagrin at how close to home many of Professor Turkle's points struck, I started to think about the role public libraries can (and already do) play in both being a place of real human connectedness and fostering the self-reflection that Professor Turkle asserts is so lacking in our world of technological hyper-connection. As we wrestle with what is our role in an increasingly digital world, we would probably be well-advised to keep this in mind.

Go Library! Visiting the libraries in the Los Angeles area

Ellen November, a PVLD volunteer and community activist, has begun a mission to visit and blog about libraries across Los Angeles County. She got the idea from Oleg Kagan, a Librarian at the County of Los Angeles Public Library's West Hollywood Library and husband of PVLD's own Ashley Kagan.

I'm looking forward to this virtual library tour! If you want to join along click here to view Ellen's Go Library blog..and share it with your friends.

Why are we (the library) here?

One of the things we have been talking about here at PVLD is what is the one overarching thing that we are trying to do as a library and how do we communicate that so that is the guiding force behind the actions and behavior of every employee and volunteer.

We don't necessarily mean a "vision statement" or a "mission statement" or a tagline...we already have one of each of those...but rather a simple articulation of why we are here.

The conversation is ongoing, but the more I think about the more I think that it is not about "access to information", or "reading" or "community center" or any of the other concepts that we in libraries often talk about.  What we are here to do is  make our community, and people's lives, better.

The wording may not be quite right, and the grammar could use some polishing, but at the end of the day if our community is not made better because of what the library does, and if the life of every person who comes through our doors or uses our services is not made better in some way small or large because of their interaction with us, we are not fulfilling our true mission.

For the community that means understanding its needs and problems, as well as its goals and aspirations, and finding ways to meet the needs, help solve the problems, or support the achievement the goals and aspirations through the resources, services, and programs that the library offers.

For individual people it means not only offering resources, services and programs to help them address their personal needs and problems or achieve their goals and aspirations but also doing what we can to make sure that every interaction with us enhances their lives.  That could be as simple as a smile and greeting to a lonely older adult or  or the speedy and polite resolution of an issue with their library account or the ability to find something enjoyable to read or a clean and comfortable place to study (or a clean restroom for that matter!)....or as complex as helping them research a medical issue or complete a homework assignment or learn a new skill or language.

The key is that whatever we do should pass the tests of making things better for our community and for every person we interact with.

At least that is what I think the real role of the library is....what about you?

Library Graffiti

Today the staff at the Malaga Cove Library were bemused to find a piece of art like this back in the stacks:

A bit of detective work helped them discover that the library was part of this very cool art project.  Thank you to the artist for including the library!

The more things change....remembering PVLD's first Librarian

Miss Agnes McMillan served as PVLD's first (and for the time of her tenure only) Librarian from 1930 to her death in 1956.  During the course of my 8 years at PVLD I have heard snippets about her, but really didn't know much.  I have always, for example, loved the story told by one of our book sale volunteers about what a momentous occasion it was for her when Miss McMillan allowed her to go into the "adult" stacks at a younger age than was generally permitted, giving rise to questions from her mother when she came home with a stack of books from the adult collection.  The mother's concerns were allayed when she learned that "Miss McMillan said I could read these".

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet a lifelong Peninsula resident, Mrs. Jane Armstrong Eubank Hall, aged 90, who back in the early 1930's was a "library kid".  The family, which for a time had no father, lived near the Malaga Cove Library.  Mrs. Hall's mother was a businesswoman who founded an insurance agency in the Malaga Cove Plaza and, distracted by the demands of business and the demands of single parenthood, allowed Jane to spend many hours at the Malaga Cove Library where she came to view Miss McMillan as a second mother.

Local History Librarian Marjeanne Blinn and Librarian Dennis Piotrowski have been gathering information and documentation about Miss McMillan to share with Mrs. Hall, and came across this 1930 letterfrom her to Mr. Charles Cheney, then-Secretary of the Board of Library Trustees - Download Miss McMillan letter in which she reports on, and gently educates him about, library operations.

While the letter certainly gives a glimpse into library operations in an earlier time, much of what she wrote made me realize how little things some things have changed. Yes, the "accession book" has been replaced by the Integrated Library System and the typewriter by the computer, but I bet there is not a library out there that has enough trash cans or has not dealt with the plumbing problems caused by inappropriate waste disposal.  We still spend a lot of time trying to get high school reading lists and visiting school classrooms, librarian still go out of their way to give the kind of service Miss McMillan provided to the "boy at the plunge", our meeting rooms are still heavily used by community groups, Library Directors still wrestle with budgets, and we still value and rely on community donations like that from the Friends of Art.

At the time when changing technology makes the future of libraries seem cloudy I found it reassuring to know that much of what we do is at its heart unchanged from 80+ years ago...

23 Reasons Why The Library Is the Most Important Place In Town

Great article from Public Libraries magazine - Community Centered:  23 Reasons Why the Library is the Most Important Place in Town - but as Patrick Sweeney pointed out when he shared it on Facebook it is really too bad it was printed in a library magazine that is read by "the choir" rather than a mainstream publication.

...Which is why it was nice to see this article by Susan Hildreth, Director of the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services  and former California State Librarian, in the Huffington Post today.

Bottom line...libraries are still relevant, and we do matter.

 

Will libraries go out of business...gradually?

As expected, this holiday season saw an explosion in the sale of tablet computers and e-readers.  According to this article from MSNBC (shared by our Facilities Manager Charles Crouse), during December Amazon.com sold over 1 million Kindles of various types each week, and during the week between Christmas and New Years Eve over 20 million Adroid and Apple IOS mobile devices were activated and over 1 billion mobile apps were downloaded. 

We are certainly seeing the effects of this in the library, as patrons come in with their new devices seeking help with everything from connecting to our WiFi network to downloading e-books.  As I wrote in my earlier post, the staff is doing its best to help - our "Getting Started With E-Books" guide is prominantly featured on our website, we have invested in a selection of devices for staff training, and we will soon begin to offer small group (2-3 people) hand-on training to the public by appointment.  We also continue to beef up our e-book collection, which now has over 1,000 titles.

I'm sure we will make it through this wave in decent shape, but I am less confident about our institutional ability to respond to the tectonic shifts that are generating these waves.

 My friend Derek Wolfgram posted this article ("Why Best Buy Is Going Out of Business...Gradually") from Forbes on Facebook this morning.  It's about Best Buy's failures during the holiday season just past and what they say about the company's ability to survive in the digital age but, as Derek pointed out, the issues identified are as relevent to libraries as they are to retailers:

"Moving online required new thinking, new management structures, and new strategies.  It would also require integrated front and back-end information systems.  Customers would expect inventory to be transparent between the web and the stores, and that specials and “exclusives” would be consistent across all channels.  Whatever attributes they associated with a retailer’s brand—whether price, quality, convenience, expertise, service—would need to be translated to the online experience and enhanced.

To compete successfully against new online retailers, traditional retailers would also need to find ways to transform the expensive liabilities of physical locations with limited hours and high labor and inventory costs into assets that complemented rather than competed with the online experience.

...Amazon neither invented nor appropriated its basic strategies from Best Buy or anyone else.  It simply does what consumers want.  Best Buy does what would be most convenient for the company for consumers to want but don’t, then crosses its fingers and prays."

Antiquated back-end inventory and database systems that do not integrate seamlessly with the online experience, expensive physical locations with limited hours and high labor and inventory costs, inability to carry sufficient inventory to fulfill customer expectations, systems that are based on what we think the customer should need....sounds eerily familiar.

I know libraries and librarians across the country and around the world, and certainly here at PVLD, are working hard to fundamentally change our operating models so that we can surf the waves of technological change rather than being crushed as they crash over our heads...but I do worry that the changes are not as fast, or as fundamental, as they need to be.

 

A hopeful view of the future of libraries

My friends Rosario and Carolyn shared this of Facebook, and it is too good not to pass along. It's a great description of what libraries are and can be...as the author puts it places of new ideas, not old books. Happy reading, and happy New Year!

http://toptrends.nowandnext.com/2011/12/28/in-praise-of-libraries-and-librarians/

Book Bike

Just because it is a beautiful day for a bike ride, and instead of  being at my desk writing my monthly report I wish I were out and about on one of these!  Thanks Patrick Sweeney for sharing

http://tucsonvelo.com/news/book-bike-will-take-library-for-a-ride/9635

Like Google...with Judgement

I LOVED this description of the value of librarians from the Net Cotton Content blog via one of my daily must-reads Cultural Offering -

"I love to go in and ask the librarians questions. They often know the answers. If not, they know where to turn.

They are like Google. But with judgement.

They face disintermediation. As in: we might stop realizing we need librarians and libraries because everything is Googlable. But, you know and I know: the Internet isn't the same thing as a Masters in Library Science. It isn't the same thing as knowing what information is trustworthy and what is just Net Cotton Content.

Don't disintermediate. Talk to a librarian today."