On several occasions (here and here, for example), I have written about the ways in which America's compulsive yet unreflective striving after the "next new thing" in technology has driven us far beyond our capacity to make certain we take all of our people along with us.
An economy which is so broadly dependent upon consumerism must ever be coming up with new things to convince consumers that they want. And those consumers must ever be wanting new things—regardless of how well what they already have works and, far worse, regardless of how this drive toward the "new and improved" sabotages the ability of a community to sustain itself and to care for everyone.
This challenge to sustainability is compounded when we consider public libraries budgets, because the dynamics of public funding have compelled us to shift our focus from "doing library" to "satisfying consumer demand."
It makes sense that libraries should provide what our users ask for. Yet look at the differing connotations of these two words:
- patrons support libraries because they know we specialize in certain information resources and services which they need;
- customers bring shifting expectations, driven by consumerism, and insist that we constantly shift to satisfy those expectations.
Increasingly, the marketplace is chasing after the newest hi-tech online possibilities, whether they relate to entertainment or to need-driven information searches. That's fine for the commercial world, yet it places huge demands on consumerism-dependent public libraries. Unlike the commercial entities which make and market this stuff, public libraries do NOT gain direct revenue from providing what their customers demand.
We are now trying to satisfy the demands of "digital natives," our most sophisticated, prosperous and privileged customers, those who have moved their lives online. They use handheld devices and laptops, they download files, and they assume that the information they want will be available through social software channels.
Not only are we trying to satisfy these demands, we are promising such services and expanding our computer and Internet networks and offerings, for fear our customers will go elsewhere if we don't—and take public funding with them.
Here's the complication. As I've written elsewhere, the shift online isn't just for those who can afford computers, broadband connections, hand-helds and laptops, and who are fluent online consumers.
Digital refugees, those who do not have and/or cannot afford these devices, and those who lack sufficient computer and online literacy (and perhaps lack more basic literacy—including non-native speakers of English), also must do their most essential personal business online.
One can no longer apply for jobs, one can no longer even apply for unemployment benefits, except online!
In the past two years, we have seen a drastic increase in the number of digital refugees flocking to us for help with personal needs for which they formerly did not need computer access or savvy. All of this at the same time that our digital native customers are looking for sophisticated downloads and Web 2.0 interactions.
Here is the crux of my concern: this increased demand for computers and access and bandwidth is happening just as sources of public revenue are collapsing all around us.
I don't believe that funding is short only because of the economic crash of the last two years, which was driven in part by our unsustainable fantasy that we could grow without limit. It is also increasingly short because of the unwillingness of consumers to pay taxes for public services.
"I want to buy and buy and borrow and buy some more. Don't slow me down with taxes—which are just to take care of other people."
Now we struggle with public library computers and servers and networks—in fact, with a local and regional and national and perhaps global Internet—which are too old and too slow and too limited in capacity to handle the demand.
As a people we've been buying toys and not building sustainable infrastructure. Now, when our culture, our business, even our social safety nets, are wholly dependent upon computers and the Internet, we don't have sufficient public funds to keep up.
I find it reassuring that our local Library Board of Trustees recognizes how essential the technology infrastructure is.
I'm fairly certain our City leaders know this too—though I'm not as confident that they recognize how essential public library technology infrastructure is to the survival of the 21st century community.
A year ago at the annual meeting of the Florida Library Association, a keynote speaker pointed out that, in times of economic crisis, public libraries are first responders.
Clearly, we need to make sure our government leaders and our customers—and those citizens who are not our customers—understand this reality. We need to make sure they fund infrastructure, not just best-selling downloads and online applications.
I think we can do this, but it won't be easy. Americans have long gotten out of the habit of planning and paying for long-term needs.
Let's cross our fingers—and get to work.
Note: I originally posted this essay in October of 2006, on Destination NEXT on the General Discussion board. Since you have to be at a staff workstation or logged into the City's remote link to get access to Destination NEXT, I'm reproducing the essay here.
I want to propose something far more radical than the "get with the future," market-driven message we library professionals are hearing these days. The focus of that message is almost wholly on competing for consumers who expect the latest in automated and online delivery of public library services. I did hear that warning and take it to heart in library school seven years ago. However, I joined and remain in the profession because of a more sacred set of librarianship values.
The roots of the American public library lie with Benjamin Franklin and his peers, who believed that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" depended upon free and equal access to information. They thought it important that information and the ability to search for, have access to and use it should not be solely the province of those privileged by prosperity or status.
Franklin himself began as an apprentice tradesman and built his career from scratch. He wanted to be sure that any other American had the means—underwritten at public expense, if necessary—to do the same. He knew that he had made his success through his own literacy, through his access to information, and through his freedom to use it, independent of the mediation or control of others.
We now have a culture in which only those with the advantage of computer and Internet access and the knowledge of how to use these tools can even get to much of the daily information which is most important for living successfully in American society. Even many basic government and commercial services are now almost inaccessible without the ability to connect to and use websites, online forms, email, office software, etc.
I’m sure that others of my colleagues have had the experience of trying to help someone who was told by an employee of the unemployment service, “Go to the public library, get on our website, and fill out the application.” Likely others have had to help a middle-aged or immigrant job hunter, possibly one with a lifetime of competence in his or her trade, now trying to find and complete the mandatory online application for a new job. You all have your own examples.
The new jargon refers to those who have grown up in the online world as “digital natives.” Those of us who entered the work world before PCs, but who have had the privilege of learning to use and perhaps of owning them, are “digital immigrants.” We somehow manage to keep up—sometimes holding on by our fingernails—as e-technology speeds away from us.
My concern here is for the very large population of immigrant and native residents who are “digital refugees.” Whether or not they know how to use these new technologies, our culture now expects them to join the “wired world” if they want access to the benefits and prosperity America has claimed for its successful citizens.
As our library system leaps ahead toward a 21st century refit, which will increasingly automate basic circulation and search services, I believe it is essential that the staff thus freed from mundane tasks be redirected with all deliberateness into what used to be called “library instruction.”
Every branch should have staff with the training, the resources and—especially—the dedicated time to teach people computer and Internet literacy. It should become a core service, developed and coordinated system-wide, for us to seek out and assist those who are struggling or being left behind in this digital age. It could be part of every public service staff person’s job description and performance plan to create, contribute to or participate in such instructional activities.
We library staff all have the advantage—the privilege—of having built successful careers in this new world. Yet if our library’s mandate is only to satisfy the consumer wishes of people who are already “on the cutting edge,” then we are failing the basic purpose of the public library: to make certain that everyone has free and equal access to what we provide at public expense.
