2007SummerQ4Response

The OCLC surveys continue to report that many Americans, as well as others, automatically associate "library" with "books and book reading.” These findings support the notion of the library as the "book place." Discuss the assets and the liabilities of the popular notion that libraries are a place to go for books and book reading.
 * Question 4:**
 * Tentative outline: (please adjust and add)**
 * Assets:**
 * Favorable attitude by community toward libraries
 * Favorable attitudes can turn into financial support
 * F.A. can turn into increased use of facility for books
 * Continues the age-old association people have always had of libraries with books
 * Can assume that even if they don’t use the library, they know where they can go if they need to find a book
 * Liabilities:**
 * Libraries offer more than books. If you associate only books, then miss out on an abundance of other services
 * Databases
 * Neutral place to hold meetings
 * Genealogy
 * Free computer use (though many libraries require library cards)
 * Movies/cds
 * Free children's programs
 * Libraries can dwindle in the number of patrons served due to this narrow association
 * "Why go, if it’s only good for books?" I can get books at a bookstore or used bookstore

Jody: I would add to the liabilities that it fails to resonate as a service to those who do not physically go to the library. In this day and age, when the majority of researchers are going to Google rather than the library, we need to build an association in people's minds, between librarians ("information professionals") and locating pertinent information, whatever the need. If users have to darken our door to get their needs met, increasingly that means that they won't come. We need to reach out to them; and we need to become known as those invaluable assistants who can find the information they need, and show them where to look.

Jody, I really like your comment about physical space. I wish I'd thought of that! Anyway, here's the outline I came up with. -Meghan Assets:
 * Books are associated with information, so library is associated as place to go for information
 * Many people still see books as entertainment and leisure, so library benefits from this description
 * As bookstores have developed into “third places” for many Americans over the last two decades, the concept of a “book place” is not necessarily a negative one. A book place is a place you can go to socialize, browse, relax and read away from home or work.

Liabilities
 * This assumes people ONLY associate libraries with books, rather than FIRST associating libraries with books and then with internet access, magazines, movies, games and other media.
 * Books and reading are considered boring by many Americans.
 * Recent research that Americans don't read, or only read one book a year lends credence to the idea that books alone will not make a library useful
 * Why use books when use internet? attitude can make “book place” a pejorative – not useful, obsolete
 * //Here I would add in Jody's comment about the assumption many people make about the need to physically go to the library//

What does this mean for libraries? What do we need to do?
 * Education – information literacy is not just for college libraries. It does not have to be as structured and formal (i.e. “boring”) as in a college library; IL opportunities exist every time a patron in a public library comes in asking for the newest James Patterson book or a book about alternative medicine – take time to demonstrate catalog, explain Dewey numbers while walking patron out to stacks to take them to the book.
 * PR – libraries are information places, media places, recreation places. The trend to cast libraries as a “third place”. Show people more than book resources, publicize other media, publicize events //and correct the idea that libraries must be visited to be used -- make good use of a library website. Many libraries have what they call e-branches.//
 * Is it a bad thing to be a book place? No! Maybe we should also embark on a campaign to rehabilitate the book in parallel with the campaign to redefine libraries as media places. The book is not a bad thing in America – Barnes & Noble would not be as successful as it is if it were.

This outline is heavily dependent on the public library angle -- that's where I work, so it's my main mindset. Anything that's more inclusive of the IS profession as a whole would be appreciated! E-branches and Ask Us Now! type stuff in universities, Information Commons initiatives, medical librarians who follow docs around with a laptop in busy teaching hospitals like Vanderbilt, educating the public of the presence of other libraries besides public and university libraries, digital library initiatives run by governments or cultural institutions to preserve indigenous knowledge or improve socio-economic growth in non-industrial, economically poor countries are all other faces of libraries besides books. -- Meghan