Tag: information

The Value & Purpose of Public Libraries

Frank Nero presents one of the best arguments in favor of public library investment I’ve read:

My view by Frank Nero: Libraries are a crucial investment in children, education, community by Frank Nero (posted on the Miami Herald on June 29, 2014)

In addition to the compelling numbers associated with the economic impact of libraries in a community, he offers powerful statements about the value and purpose of libraries.

On education and early literacy:

[E]arly exposure to books and reading is a critical determinant in a child’s academic success, and the independent research skills that libraries foster are both an essential ingredient in academic success and lifelong learning.

Public libraries have always been the gateway to education for preschool children and have always played a major role in supporting formal education.

And this perfectly sums up an argument that I frequently make about the role of libraries in the Digital Age:

The physical space that libraries have is a real asset that shouldn’t be ignored during this era of transition to all things digital. Libraries are community centers where people come and access the resources they need to do whatever they need to do. That may be for schoolwork, it may be to apply for a job or unemployment benefits, or it may be to run a business. Libraries can be the span to help bridge the digital divide.

The success of libraries in the future may have a lot to do with how flexible they can be in adapting to the needs of the community, but even so, the core mission of libraries remains the same. Its traditional role has always been as a community resource for information and referral – it’s just that technology is changing how it does that. We must recognize that libraries are not just a collection of books, but a collection of experiences and opportunities.

I’d like to see Mr. Nero’s op-ed piece shared as widely as possible.

The Real Challenge of the Digital Divide

This article raises an essential point about efforts to overcome the Digital Divide:

Technology Is Making Achievement Gaps Bigger by Annie Murphy Paul (posted on The Brilliant Blog on June 25, 2014)

The real issue we face when we address the Digital Divide isn’t access to technology.

The real issue is digital literacy.

Our most important task isn’t merely to provide access to technology. We also have to teach people how to use it effectively and safely. People who don’t have the opportunity to use technology on a regular basis also don’t have an opportunity to develop effective digital skills. To quote the article above:

Not only are affluent kids more likely to know how to Google; they’re more likely to know what to Google for.

More than that—digital literacy is about teaching people why technology matters, how it can help to make their lives better. People who have gotten along without technology so far may not always recognize why access to it matters now.

It does no good to hand technology to someone who has no idea how to use it. Any attempt to overcome the Digital Divide must go hand-in-hand with digital literacy education and development.

Thoughts on Mobile Reference

Digital librarians spend a lot of time thinking about online and mobile reference. Reference is the core service of libraries—helping people find the information they need is what librarians have been doing for centuries.

We need to explore methods to translate reference services into digital environments. I’m happy to see all the work being done on this front.

One of the concerns that comes up pretty often in discussions of mobile reference is the competition with online, crowd-sourced Q&A services like Yahoo Answers. The more I think about it, though, the more I’m convinced that this concern is a red herring.

I don’t believe that libraries should try to compete with these services. Because I’m not at all convinced that libraries should be in the business of casual Q&A.
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Book Review: Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger

Everything Is Miscellaneous book cover
Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger. New York: Times Books, 2007.
The central thesis of Everything Is Miscellaneous is one with which I completely agree: digital information environments allow us to organize, access, and interact with information in new and previously undreamt ways. It allows us to transcend the limitations of physical storage and communication media, to free information to be everywhere and anywhere all at the same time.

It allows information to be whatever we need, whenever we need it. There exists more potential now to add more value, not just to information itself, but to the ways we access and interact with it. Mr. Weinberger offers us a powerful and compelling vision for our digital information world.

These three quotes perfectly sum up what this book is about:

From p. 212:

The difference in the digital order is the difference between the annoying interactions you have on a product support line… and the conversations you have with real people. … The potential for connections from the trivial to the urgent is characteristic of the new miscellany. We are busily creating as many of these meaningful connections as we can.

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On the Nature of Information & Patron Value

In grad school, we spent a huge amount of time debating the nature of data, information, knowledge, and even wisdom.

On January 8, 2014, I tweeted the following:

It’s the most popular thing I’ve ever tweeted.

A couple of people took issue with my use of the word “information”. One person argued that information refers to things like bus schedules but not to things like the First Folio of Shakespeare.

I explained to this person that I used “information” in my tweet to refer to the entire corpus of recorded human thought and effort. Twitter isn’t the proper venue for detailed discussions of grammatical nuance.

But what I wanted to say in response was this:
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The End Of The Library?

I just read this post on TechCrunch:

The End Of The Library by MG Siegler (posted on October 13, 2013)

Obviously, this post is generating huge reactions among some librarians. There’s not a lot for me to add to the discussion on the future of libraries that I didn’t say in my post Another Librarian’s Response to “What’s a Library?” and in my response to Terry Deary when he suggested that libraries are no longer relevant.

In particular:

He doesn’t see our research resources, our literacy initiatives, our job search assistance, our government documents collections, or our social services. He doesn’t see our partnerships with local school systems and cultural institutions. He doesn’t see community use spaces and safe places to for people to hang out. He doesn’t see a champion of informed democracy and self-improvement. He doesn’t see librarians as curators of information, experts to guide people through society’s myriad information resources.

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Internet Censorship: A Global Perspective

Given the blog I posted yesterday about CIPA, I think this is an important perspective to keep in mind:

A Map of the Countries That Censor the Internet by Casey Chan (posted by Gizmodo on August 13, 2013; found via Stephen’s Lighthouse)

This is not in any way to mitigate the irreducible importance of the freedom of information in our democracy. But the larger reality is that we’re far better off on this front than many other people in throughout the world. If anything—this makes upholding our own freedom all the more important, as an example of the benefit to society that it engenders.

CIPA, Censorship & the EFF

For the past few days, this article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been making its way through the library sphere:

The Cost of Censorship in Libraries: 10 Years Under the Children’s Internet Protection Act by Rainey Reitman (posted on September 4, 2013)

There’s much excellent material to go over in this piece. I have many reactions to it. The first and most important being this:

It’s not a library’s job to police people.

It’s not actually our job to act in loco parentis. This is one of the big differences between public libraries and public schools, and it’s something that many library patrons misunderstand. It’s not a library’s job to judge any patron’s information needs—it’s not even any of our business why they need it.

It is our job to provide access to information and to help people learn how to handle it in useful and healthy ways.
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Unintentional Knowledge

I love this article! It’s a wonderful summary of the real value of browsing the stacks.

Unintentional Knowledge: What We Find When We’re Not Looking by Julie Alves (posted on The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 23, 2013)

As a professional librarian, I’m obsessed with the phenomenon of serendipitous discovery. Some of the most rewarding learning experiences of my life came to me by chance; I discovered some of my favorite books and authors simply by browsing the shelves at the library and allowing interesting things to catch my eye. I’m more grateful for these unlooked-for experiences than I can say.

With new digital content services, and with more libraries going towards automated storage and retrieval systems for their print collections, we’re challenged to find ways to maintain the possibility of non-targeted browsing and unanticipated discovery under these new conditions.
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Information Tsunami

One of the primary functions of libraries – and librarians – especially in our current Information Age, is to sort through the ocean of information available to us and find the truly worthwhile bits. We talk about “tsunamis” of information, “deluges” of information, and we’re acutely aware of how easily people can get lost and drown in it all.

I recently had an experience that made all this very real to me.

Bookgate

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