Is there a future for libraries?

I love books, my family love books and to prove it I estimate I have 32 meters of books and my father, who inherited his mothers collection, has even more. My books are my history of interests and reading tastes, many are well thumbed old friends, some were purchased with good intentions and never read. However, in the last 10 years, I read significantly less books and buy very fewer. With the internet to hand I have many more choices in how I access information.

As my eyes have become increasingly tired from hours in front of the computer screen, instead of reading a book, I’ve rediscovered the pleasure of being read to and have a large library on audible.com.

Since purchasing a Firestick so that I can easily access the internet on the TV, I’ve discovered the wealth of knowledge on YouTube videos. When it’s time to prune the apple trees, instead of getting a pile of gardening books and settling down with a cup of tea to review pruning techniques, the cup of tea is taken in front of the TV watching YouTube videos from my favourite gardening presenters. I also regularly watch presentations from tech conferences to keep my work skills up to date.

Of course Google is almost always within reach, so questions that would have had me getting up and going to reference books are now only a few clicks away.

So I have to ask, with great sadness, what is the future of physical books and libraries? Are libraries set to disappear as the generations that grew with books are replaced by a younger generation connected to a digital world? Maybe libraries will remain as safe havens for those that do not want to connect, who prefer the more considered writings of authors committing their words in the unchangable format of a book? Or is there way for libraries to evolve in a digital world without losing their essence of “libraryness”?

I’m asking these questions not because I think there is anything wrong with libraries as they are or that I don’t realise that libraries are fulfilling far more roles than just lending books. I visited the Dunmanway Library (Co. Cork , Ireland) recently and spent an hour talking with the librarian Aine O’Brien and soon everyone visiting the library for different reasons that day joined in. They all were passionate about the importance of the services the library provides, including:

• Being able to borrow any book from any library in the country for free — for those that cannot afford to keep buying books, the library is essential to feed their reading habit.
• The librarians know their regulars tastes and ask how they got on with a book so they know if they should recommend it to others with similar tastes.
• Access to the internet and a printer — essential for frequently for printing boarding cards and other forms if you don’t have a printer.
• Guide to the books in the library — if I want to make some jam, what book is best? If an adult is looking for an introduction to biology, one of the children’s books might be best, whereas a knowledgeable birdwatching child would find an adult book on birds more useful.
• Curator of local history and local knowledge — there is a stack of books on the Dunmanway
• Talks by local people — an arctic explorer is due to give a talk and they expect over 50 kids to attend. Before the talk they have gathered all the copies of the explorer’s book from the country for the kids to read.
• Source of local information on sports and social clubs.
• Venue for community gatherings — The Knit and Natter Group meets weekly
• Source of information on local and regional matters such as the proposed County boundary changes.

So what is my problem? It’s not what libraries are doing but how they are perceived. In these days of the sound bite, how do you encapsulate the role of the library in a way which seems relevant, important and worthy of funding and support going forward?

I offer a suggestion that is based in the past and focuses on information and how that information becomes knowledge stored in our mind.

The original libraries were collections of information in the form of writing, that were held by the elite. The introduction of public libraries meant anyone that could read could become more knowledgeable, and that was the beginning of the focus on reading. Still, however, information and knowledge remained scarce resources held by a few experts who could charge for access to their knowledge.

Now, in the 21st Century we have many more ways of encoding and sharing information than just writing it down and for the younger generation, the medium of video is more popular than the book.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence is providing another new way of encoding information and knowledge that will bring expertise to our smartphone. The new wave of machine learning promised to be able to learn from experts, even that knowledge they cannot describe, by processing images and sound as well as the spoken word. Machines will soon be better at diagnosing illness than a GP, better at driving cars than most drivers, better at designing structures than engineer. Machines are learning to look at an image and translate what they see into words. In this future, will we even need to read?

If the library were to return to its wider purpose of storing and sharing information, and helping people translate that into knowledge, what would this look like? It would probably include many of the diverse activities already being done beyond sharing books: reading groups, literacy programmes, meeting places for local group, but it might open the door to new activities and new library users.

There are two steps in converting information into knowledge. One is getting access to the information and the other is understanding that information and absorbing it as knowledge.

Having physical access to a book or the internet is not the same as having access to information. This may be because people don’t have literacy skills, because people sight is deteriorating, because they have a challenge with dyslexia or are lacking skills in the language of the country that they are living in. It may even be the common problem of not understanding the jargon that is used by a particular document or video. Is there a role for the libraries and librarians to decode this information in a way that helps local people understand or gain knowledge?

And finally, the other role of libraries as a physical space. I asked a friend’s daughter, aged 16, did she ever go into a library? Yes, she liked going to libraries, not to read the books, but as a quiet space where she was not required to interact with the people around her, where she could read or study and because she like the smell of books! As someone who works from home, I have a similar requirement, but I go to to coffee shops. If libraries provided coffee, good broadband and a nice sofa to sit on I’d be there!

So here is my suggestion for making it clearer to non-library users why libraries are important and worthy of funding. Talk less about books and reading and more information and knowledge and how in a fast evolving future, we are all going to be under pressure to get more it. Libraries can once more provide a gateway to knowledge that is accessible by everyone.