The End of Euro Envy | Editorial
U.S. libraries are setting the pace on innovation June 1, 2011I may finally be over my scandinavian/ European/Singapore library envy. For years, librarians who traveled to these places touted them for being far ahead of U.S. libraries in service. They were there first with self-check, library cards for reservations and fines, book/audio kiosks in train stations and other high-traffic areas, text messaging for holds pickup, open building plans. But such creativity also flows inside our borders.
Reading about LJ’s New Landmark Libraries and listening to librarians at the LJ Design Institute in early May at Hennepin County’s Minneapolis Central Library (see coverage) and at the MetLib [international library] Conference at Queens Library in Flushing, NY, a week later made me realize there is no dearth of great ideas right here at home. Many of the public libraries abroad are hugely innovative as well, so I’m not throwing stones. I just no longer feel that we are woefully behind.
In fact, a number of the Europeans at the MetLib conference are turning to libraries like Queens for insight on how to deal with an influx of immigrants. With a population of 2.2 million, one million foreign-born, 45 percent not citizens, Queens is the poster child for new immigrant services, including language learning and literacy programs, job skills, health info and referrals, multilingual collections, and much more. Its New Americans Program, which began back in 1977, has a resident demographer to identify and build collections and services for each new wave of immigrants.
It was rather surprising to hear that the Municipal Library of Prague, which serves 1.3 million people with a central library and 42 branches, only has 180,000 active users—and that a 15 percent or so population share like that is similar to other libraries in central Europe and is considered good. Compare that to U.S. public libraries, where a recent Harris poll showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans visit their public libraries annually, and nearly 60 percent have library cards—and use them.
The challenges that libraries in the United States and other nations face, whether from immigrant populations or ebooks and the Internet, are not dissimilar. Tomáš Rehák, managing director of the Municipal Library of Prague, said that one sixth of his users disappear each year—although 96 percent of current users polled said they plan to use the library the same or more and 92 percent said they were very/quite satisfied with the library. Asked, “What would bring you back,” the response was, “I just don’t need to borrow anything.”
“They simply lack reasons to go to the library,” said Rehák, a situation he says will only intensify as print books disappear and ebooks become easy and cheap. Will we “still [be] worth the taxpayers money, like schools, hospitals...fire, police,” he asked, “if we don’t change anything?”
“The public library must be a place where people want to be,” Rehák said. They must be “beautiful places...living spaces...places where people can meet.” Even more important, however, “We need to be the backbone infrastructure of creative industry,” he said. “We should support creativity, we should inspire creativity, we should promote creativity, and we should facilitate creativity.”
His comments are similar to what we’ve been hearing from many U.S. librarians, and solutions are being implemented at libraries large and small stateside. At MetLib, Kim Fender, executive director at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, discussed market penetration per branch and the opportunities that lower penetration pose. What’s the library doing to attract or hold on to different segments of society? “Embracing digital service delivery, increasing digital content...introducing [and providing] training on new technology,” she said, and, most importantly, eliminating “customer-unfriendly policies.” While we can all learn from each other, there’s no lack of solutions here at home.
| Author Information |
| Francine Fialkoff (ffialkoff@mediasourceinc.com) is Editor-in-Chief, LJ |
