Who will lead the unsuspecting lemmings over the cliff? - Buildings, Books, and Bytes: Perspectives on the Benton Foundation Report on Libraries in the Digital Age

Library Trends, Summer, 1997 by Herbert S. White

A study examining the prospects for our profession's future as we prepare for the next millennium is certainly welcome and very much needed, particularly when it is undertaken by the prestigious Benton Foundation and funded by the W. K Kellogg Foundation, both groups which have shown their interest in, and support for, the concerns of this profession. That the profession of librarianship faces an uncertain and perhaps even frightening future can hardly be doubted. Declines in support for public library and academic library activities, reductions in both staffing (particularly professional staffing) and funding, a decline in an insistence on the professional degree in hiring, and lack of support for continuing education--these are just a few examples. Other indicators of decline include the closing of many of the most prestigious institutions which prepared our future professionals (and without future professionals we become a dying breed), and the continuing trivialization of what we are and what we do by all branches of the media (e.g., the annual return of "It's a Wonderful Life" in which, in the absence of faith, something horrible like becoming a spinster librarian could happen). In the last few years, this trend has been aggravated by slick television ads for computer hardware and systems manufacturers which inform us that going to the library is no longer necessary since all information is "easily" and "rapidly" accessible on the system we are about to purchase. Finally, one needs only ride on airplanes a few times to discover the discomfort and puzzlement brought on by learning that one's companion for the next few hours actually teaches and researches in the profession of librarianship. These are simply random examples of problems in public perception and public support of which we are all aware. A study leading to a new and assertive strategy would be very welcome.

The first suggestion that this report is going to be disappointing comes from its very title, because Buildings, Books, and Bytes, while certainly a catchy title, is as much an example of trivialization as those cited above. Buildings, printed material, and computer access to information in other than printed form are merely tools for the carrying out of our mission and responsibility, if indeed we can ever decide what that is, rather than wait for others to tell us. Buildings, for example, are a necessary means to an end but never an end in themselves. Inadequate physical facilities make it difficult or impossible for librarians to do their jobs; adequate buildings at least increase the potential. In speaking at the dedication of a new public library in Findlay, Ohio, this writer congratulated the assembled civic officials and Chamber of Commerce representatives on making such a good start, but then asked them if they had considered how they now wanted to use this new opportunity to enhance public library service for the citizens, and what additional funding they were considering for access and staff. They were surprised at my comments, because they assumed that in building a new structure they had completed their task. Perhaps the most garish recent example comes from the city of San Francisco, where a new $134 million library has been completed without any thought to additional professional staffing. This is more than a waste; it is a danger, because the citizens of San Francisco now think they have supported their public library, when in reality they have perhaps only improved their skyline.

Books and bytes, as the report calls them rather simplistically, are also not the issue, but rather only among the options which allow librarians to bring more and better needed information and knowledge to the citizens of the community. Those options have always been subject to change and will continue to change. None of us recall what concern and anguish might have arisen when printed books began to appear next to manuscripts in libraries, but there was undoubtedly fear that libraries would now be spoiled forever. We do know that the introduction of typewriters and their use in preparing previously handwritten catalog cards caused much alarm.

If people think that changing the mix between printed books and computer access somehow "changes" what libraries are supposed to do, then that conception is both wrong and simplistic. When it appears in the opinions of the general public, this is not surprising because the public has always been initially suspicious of significant change as an attack on tradition and comfort. There was a similar outcry at the introduction of automobiles and the fact that they would frighten horses. Public negative reaction is temporary, provided that there is professional leadership from those qualified, through education and study, to know. What is significant in the introduction of computers in libraries is the fact that, when added to more traditional (which only means earlier) formats, they allow for far greater access to information than had previously been possible. In other words, all libraries, including small and geographically isolated ones, now become windows to the world's knowledge. That is the good news, but there are three pieces of potentially bad news, although the bad news is trivial by comparison. The first piece of bad news is that all of this will produce access to tremendous quantities of information, and that this will require filters. As syndicated management guru Tom Peters has noted, "a flood of information can be the enemy of intelligence." Expanded information access will require gatekeepers and evaluators. The second piece of news, which stems from the first, is that all of this will require a great many more professional librarians, because this is the most cost effective alternative. The third, of course, is that funding for libraries will have to increase dramatically. However, there is no acceptable alternative, because the alternative is stupidity and particularly stupidity while others are getting smart.