Pathways to tomorrow's service: the future of rural libraries - Rural Libraries and Information Services

Library Trends, Summer, 1995 by Glen E. Holt

ABSTRACT

THIS ARTICLE IS AN EXAMINATION of the forces and trends, the imperatives and the options, affecting the future of rural libraries. It explores shifts in rural library constituencies, the varied factors--including funding and staffing--affecting their ability to deliver service, critical technological developments, and changing customer expectations. If rural libraries are to have a bright future, the staff and trustee leaders of rural library districts will have to grapple with these issues.

THE STATE OF RURAL LIBRARIES

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of

wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, . . . it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of Light, . . . we had everything before us, we

had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were

all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like

the present period, that some of its nosiest authorities insisted on its

being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison

only.

This beautifully woven tapestry of contrasting words that opens Charles Dickens, 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, is an appropriate starting point for an examination of the future of rural libraries. For, no library-related topic provokes greater difference of opinion than the current situation and future prospects of rural libraries.

Glen E. Holt, St. Louis Public Library, 1301 Olive Street, St. Louis, MO 63103 LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 44, No. 1, Summer 1995, pp. 190 215 [C] 1995 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois

On the one hand, a recent survey of libraries serving thirty-four Connecticut communities, most with under 25,000 patrons (Weleh & Donohue, 1994, pp. 149-51), suggests that they do not need much change. When asked why they did not visit their local libraries, nonusers provided no "reasons that might be construed as reflecting library deficiencies, such as inadequate facilities, poor services, etc." Rather, nonusers stated that they did not have time or simply were not in the habit of using the library. The study concluded that, while schools needed to do a better job of getting students into the "library habit," rural libraries were doing a good job in meeting the needs of their users.

A far different picture is painted in a recent national survey executed by the Center for Rural Libraries at Clarion University of Pennsylvania. In one report from the study, Vavrek (1990) concludes: "There is a gap between the daily information needs of rural residents and the ability of the [rural] library to satisfy those needs" (p. 2).

As major reasons for nonuse, those surveyed stated "a lack of transportation," "being physically unable," and "not being sure of what is at the library." And new services were wanted: 70 percent of users and 30 percent of nonusers asked for "computerized information," "job training," "books on tape," and "activities for senior Americans."

Although most Clarion University study respondents regarded rural libraries as popular reading places, only 20 percent listed their public library as a place to obtain "current" information. The rural library ranked behind asking a professional or asking a friend or relative as the best source for up-to-date information (Vavrek, 1993, p. i).

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, . . . it was the season

of Darkness, it was the spring of Light....

This article examines the changes in rural libraries which have produced such contrasts. These changes include shifts in rural library constituencies, the varied factors affecting their ability to deliver service, critical technological developments, and changing customer expectations. If rural libraries are to have a bright future, their leaders will have to grapple with all of these issues.

THE CHALLENGE OF RURAL CHANGE

Decades ago, the steam engine and the railroad began to erode the edges of rural isolation. In recent decades, more modern transportation (the automobile and the motor truck) and communication technology (telegraph, telephone, radio, and television) accelerated the process.

The new technological implements connected cities, suburbs, edge cities, exurbia, satellite cities, farm-to-market towns, and crossroads hamlets. The resulting blur of settlement often became so indistinct that even scholars found it difficult to decide where one kind of settlement ended and another one began.

As this process continued, it upset traditional institutions and ways of life. The rural Kansas town of Elmo, where my parents resided when l was born, no longer exists. Shiloh, the rural church near Chilhowee, Missouri, where my father's parents worshiped, stands abandoned; only the size of the nearby grown-over cemetery marks the site's importance to long-gone generations. My mother's parents, rural farmhouse in south Dickinson County, Kansas, is now a ripple in a wheat field. Only a solitary tree growing through the broken boards of an old well cover marks its former place. The Dayton Township School, where my father began teaching farm children at the onset of the Great Depression, is a fenced-in knoll covered with tall prairie grass.