The Library of Birmingham's bright vision for the future

Since the Google books/copyright situation has been resolved, at least for now baring court appeals, I'll address "Rewriting the Book: On the Move with the Library of Birmingham".

The whole piece did leave me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth due to the fact that it felt like a commercial for a library.  This isn't surprising given that it was written by the assistant director for culture on the Birmingham City Council.  A promotional piece is essentially what it was intended to be.  That being said, I find myself thinking that it was very one-sided in its emphasis on the mobile technology side of the new offerings.  I have read about this new library in Birmingham before, and honestly the most exciting part of it is not that I can use my mobile phone to access information from it, but that the entire library experience could be enriched by the new experiences that the library will be providing.  The fact that they call it "Birmingham Library and Archives Services" is promising, mainly for the latter part of that title.  Municipal archives are criminally underused, and the integration of it with the larger library whole is to be commended.  I am impressed by the fact that they are planning on making use of library web space to give the archives a digital presence, which should serve to entice patrons in to use the physical items more often.  Often archives are a bit of a hidden collection and need help seeing the light of day.

Of particular note is the graphic explaining their concept of "The 5 libraries of LOB Digital".  This breaks down the various roles that the hope the library will play.  It includes the library as a space, as a collection of materials, as a facilitator of community knowledge sharing, a resource of knowledgeable employees, and as a way to connect the digital lives of patrons with the information they want to gather and use.

The article concludes by saying the the library of the future will be very different from the library of today.  While I personally would like to think of it not so much being different as being "enhanced", the amount of effort and city resources, both in time and financially speaking, is astounding and laudable, especially in an age when many are questioning the role of the public municipal library.

The internet, libraries, and the real world

                It embarrasses me to admit, I have managed to get through nearly 20 years of internet use without having any more than the most basic idea of how it all works.  I’ve bandied about words like servers, T3 connections, and routers, only knowing half of what it in fact is that these terms mean and what the objects in question do.  The readings for this week’s class were immediately helpful to me in grasping some of the building blocks of what makes the internet the internet.  My next thought was that it would’ve been extremely beneficial to have had this information a lot sooner than my final year of grad school.  Surely this kind of thing is what should be taught as part of some core curriculum at least at the high school level.  Perhaps it is, and just wasn’t while I was in school because the internet was such a new thing.  Much like I had to teach myself the grand majority of the historical knowledge that I have today due to a lack of classes in the subject, I imagine it is through hobby and personal interest that the majority of computer engineers know what they do about the internet. 

                With the net becoming more and more integrated into the everyday tasks libraries face, it seems to me that it should not be taken for granted that library students will just pick things up as they go along.  Specific courses that deal with internet history and current trends should be made more widely available.  Perhaps this is being done already, but web integration in the classroom during grade school should certainly be applied widely. 

In the O’Reilly and Battelle article, they describe the coming “Web 3.0” as being the “information shadow” of the real world.  Increasingly, I find this to be absolutely true.  In fact, it is getting to the point that if something does not have a web presence, it might be suspect.  I found myself appalled to learn a few years ago that job seeking committees often felt that it was a red flag if they googled the name of a job applicant and nothing came up.  To me it was a privacy issue, to them it meant that this person did not have any kind of online professional or personal space.  The lack of the former could mean the applicant was a luddite, the latter an indication of possible anti-social tendencies.  Now I find myself shying away from eating at restaurants or staying in motels if there is not an official website of the place for me to find more information about it.  I would argue that while such real life/web interface can be a good thing in many ways, that it is best that remember that the internet is still simply a tool.  Admittedly it is a tool with many uses for many aspects of life, but a tool nonetheless.  When used overmuch or in the wrong way, it could very much backfire on the user.   Knowing this, smart users of the internet try to limit the amount their private information is bandied about.  Which brings us to a strength that libraries have libraries in the internet age over Barnes and Noble and Amazon.  Libraries and librarians have privacy as a core value professionally.  Not so private companies.  They would like to harvest your information to better sell you products.  Libraries are committed to bringing you and the best information possible together while never jeopardizing private details about individuals.  With life and the net getting closer and closer together, I believe this is an aspect of librarianship that libraries should emphasize to maintain relevance in the future.