by: Gerry Bellett
Sandra Singh would not describe herself as a futurist but the Vancouver Public Library's chief librarian does not hesitate to contradict those who peer into the future and predict the death of the printed word.
Such a death also hints at the possible redundancy of such beautiful edifices as the main Vancouver Library, the nine storey Colosseum that holds 1.3 million items and covers a full block at Georgia and Homer.
"The principles of why libraries exist are enduring," said Singh. "They have always been about ensuring everyone has access to information, ideas, knowledge, cultural expressions - things needed to inspire and inform us, and that will never change," she said.
"What does change are the technologies by which information, knowledge and ideas are created and exchanged and for many years the physical book was the mode for that. And it's going to be for many, many years to come - it's an enduring format," she said.
With the arrival of ebooks and the seemingly irresistible onrush of digital information and the breathless pace at which it is advancing, it would seem the printed word must soon be overwhelmed. But Surrey's chief librarian Melanie Holden also has her doubts.
As in Vancouver, the number of ebook readers is growing, but that's only part of the story.
"I'm not saying it's a backlash," said Holden, "but we are finding people are reluctant to give up the printed book."
The printed word One of the most surprising findings of a recent readership survey was that teenage readers appear to be the printed word's most stubborn supporters.
"The demand for printed teen books had risen. And that's not what you might expect," said Holden.
"Maybe kids have enough technology and perhaps they want something low-tech and have discovered it's more restful to read an actual book and that there's a solitary pleasure in it."
For Singh and Holden, the future will be a blend of the physical and the digital.
If anything, the digital revolution has cemented the future of libraries, says Singh.
"It's made libraries more important than ever before. It's a common misconception that with the Internet, information is free and reliable, wellresearched and thoughtfully presented," she said.
"That's not the case. Unbiased information is pretty hard to come by and you have to do a lot of work to get at it and you often have to pay for it. What libraries have always done is pool the resources of the community so together we have access to what, individually, we couldn't afford."
And that is not going to change, added Singh.
"Today we've got physical books and electronic books - some are free and some are subscription - and they come on a number of different platforms and then there's this huge amount of information on the Internet," she said.
"So it's rather like drinking from a fire hydrant, only the water isn't always of the best quality - some of it's contaminated - and you have to have extraordinary patience to dig through it all to find the stuff you can trust so you can make decisions based on good information, not just expedient information. It could take you many hours to do this but a trained librarian will help you through it in a lot less time."
Such a death also hints at the possible redundancy of such beautiful edifices as the main Vancouver Library, the nine storey Colosseum that holds 1.3 million items and covers a full block at Georgia and Homer.
"The principles of why libraries exist are enduring," said Singh. "They have always been about ensuring everyone has access to information, ideas, knowledge, cultural expressions - things needed to inspire and inform us, and that will never change," she said.
"What does change are the technologies by which information, knowledge and ideas are created and exchanged and for many years the physical book was the mode for that. And it's going to be for many, many years to come - it's an enduring format," she said.
With the arrival of ebooks and the seemingly irresistible onrush of digital information and the breathless pace at which it is advancing, it would seem the printed word must soon be overwhelmed. But Surrey's chief librarian Melanie Holden also has her doubts.
As in Vancouver, the number of ebook readers is growing, but that's only part of the story.
"I'm not saying it's a backlash," said Holden, "but we are finding people are reluctant to give up the printed book."
The printed word One of the most surprising findings of a recent readership survey was that teenage readers appear to be the printed word's most stubborn supporters.
"The demand for printed teen books had risen. And that's not what you might expect," said Holden.
"Maybe kids have enough technology and perhaps they want something low-tech and have discovered it's more restful to read an actual book and that there's a solitary pleasure in it."
For Singh and Holden, the future will be a blend of the physical and the digital.
If anything, the digital revolution has cemented the future of libraries, says Singh.
"It's made libraries more important than ever before. It's a common misconception that with the Internet, information is free and reliable, wellresearched and thoughtfully presented," she said.
"That's not the case. Unbiased information is pretty hard to come by and you have to do a lot of work to get at it and you often have to pay for it. What libraries have always done is pool the resources of the community so together we have access to what, individually, we couldn't afford."
And that is not going to change, added Singh.
"Today we've got physical books and electronic books - some are free and some are subscription - and they come on a number of different platforms and then there's this huge amount of information on the Internet," she said.
"So it's rather like drinking from a fire hydrant, only the water isn't always of the best quality - some of it's contaminated - and you have to have extraordinary patience to dig through it all to find the stuff you can trust so you can make decisions based on good information, not just expedient information. It could take you many hours to do this but a trained librarian will help you through it in a lot less time."
A digital future It was the desire to spread knowledge to the working class and the poor that led to the 19th-century growth of public lending libraries in Europe and North America.
The democratic necessity for removing the economic barriers to enlightenment is as apparent in the digital age as it was 110 years ago when the Carnegie Library opened it doors at Main and Hastings, says Singh.
"Everything digital isn't free, so we are still in a situation where if you can afford to access it, you
can. But if you can't, too bad," she said.
"Libraries are the antidote to that and this is important today when books are born digital and published in digitalonly because now we are looking at a future where not only does the library have to buy the digital book but also the device needed to read it for those who can't afford to," she added.
"Some libraries have already done this but we didn't want to jump in right away because the device market was so unstable and we didn't want to invest in a whole bunch of machines and need to replace them six months later. But there's getting to be some stability in the device market now so now we are going to start looking at that."
(The library is operating a successful ebook lending system in conjunction with community groups working with adults with low literacy skills.) Busier than ever More people than ever are using the Vancouver Public Library system. An estimated 74 per cent of Vancouverites used the library in 2012, with 6.6 million through-the-door visits, and 5.2 million online visits.
"How people are using the library depends on how comfortable they are with technology. We have some users who just borrow ebooks and we never see them come through the doors and then we have a whole bunch of people dedicated to print and some move in between. So our circulation is really high and stable with the electronic circulation growing exponentially," she said. Last year, the library circulated 10 million items, of which 200,000 were electronic books. In 2010, the electronic book circulation was 30,000.
The evolution of libraries The library of old was quiet as a church but the sanctity of silence on behalf of the solitary reader has given way as libraries have evolved into places for group study or discussion and space for community events.
Surrey's new main library that opened in 2011 was designed to meet a future that would require more dynamic use of space than being a repository for rows of books and silence.
Already Holden would like it if the library could open at least another meeting room to augment the three existing. "Libraries are much noisier. We still have one small space for quiet study: it has room for about 20 people. The rest is open space and people are free to talk and converse," she said.
"When I walked through the building today, we had two story times happening for kids, a couple of author readings, the Rotary Book Club was meeting, we had a program for adults with learning disabilities, plus there's people hanging around in the coffee shop and a school tour going through.
"It's not like it used to be."
from: Vancouver Sun
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