Are Libraries “Limited, Obsolete”?
Debate in Kansas burns up the blogosphere
By Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 11/1/2006
An October 2 opinion piece in the Lawrence Journal World, KS, headlined, “Libraries are limited, obsolete,” set off a firestorm of online debate locally and around the library blogosphere, prompting librarians to defend their world furiously and at the same time do some soul-searching.
The author, University of Kansas Business School professor Mark Hirschey, challenged the plans for a new downtown library, arguing that libraries fall short behind the Internet in providing convenient information and that computers should be better dispersed; that a librarian shouldn’t be relied on as much as “multiple information providers” that “make fact checking easy and reliable”; and that libraries are far less interactive than modern information technology.
His solution: broadband for all, perhaps via free Internet cafés or even city-provided computers for the poor.
Defending libraries
One commenter who likes borrowing books from libraries agreed that broadband access was needed, but a library was also needed. A librarian responded that much information is not available on the Internet—or at least not for free. Even if it were, the librarian added, “knowledge is a very different thing from information.”
The online commentary jumped over to several blogs. Michael Stephens of Tame the Web offered “Ten Things I Know About Libraries,” and Sarah Houghton, Librarian in Black, gave a pointed response. John Blyberg of the Ann Arbor District Library, MI, suggested that librarians do more than just reflexively refute the arguments.
“While I fundamentally disagree with [Hirschey’s] conclusions, he’s raising a number of very serious and reasonable concerns,” Blyberg wrote. “While his opinion may not be shared by the majority of his community, it’s an indication of what’s to come.... Because, as much as we do not want to admit it, there is some truth to those arguments. Libraries are neophyte marketers in a world where perception and opinion trumps logic and truth. So we can circle the wagons and remind ourselves how important we are, or we can be pragmatic and do something about this.”
Blyberg observed, “I think as we push further into the 21st century, a lot of librarians are going to have to reconcile their expectations of what they think a library should be with what a library needs to be.”
