Expect More

Lankes, a professor and Dean’s Scholar for the New Librarianship at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and director of the Information Institute of Syracuse, addresses the never-ending battle to change the perception that libraries are simply “brick and mortar book warehouses.” He also addresses the importance of a library’s contribution to its community and at the same time, the community’s expectations of its library:

We also know a few things that communities should expect from their libraries. Libraries should be places for knowledge creation and sharing, not just consumption and checking out books. We know that the function of a library must transcend the boundaries of walls. Communities should expect libraries to provide service to our increasingly on-the-move population. That means that students should be able to access library services from home. Employees should be able to access their library from their smartphones. Citizens should be able to interact with the public library on the web, in community centers, and in city hall.

And we are currently working on furthering this goal. With our upcoming transition to TLC, as well as redesigning our website to optimize it for mobile devices (visit http://www.nypl.org/ on your computer and then on your mobile device to see an example of what I mean by “optimized for mobile”), we are making our site easier to use for the customers who visited metrolibrary.org more than half a million times last year using a mobile device. We will also begin providing reference services via instant messaging and text so that we can provide library services to our customers in “their space.”

Lankes also encourages introspection in order to generate constructive conversation:

To question something is not to assume something is bad, but to test its fitness. Asking why a library offers reference services, or why its collection budget needs to be increased, or about the impact of a story hour is not out of bounds. Great libraries welcome the questions because they are a chance to show value.

When done properly, questioning what we do is not a form of challenge or insubordination. Questioning what we do helps us discover the value of what we do and empowers us to communicate this value to our customers. Questioning can help us show our community how the library can change their lives by putting actual numbers on the cost of purchasing the equivalent print or digital materials when we promote our eMedia, Freegal and Zinio services. Questioning can help us explain the benefits of reading and playing on early childhood literacy and provide a safe environment in which parents and children can do just that.

On his webpage, Lankes not only provides a free copy of the book, but also a number of videos to illustrate some of ideas from the book. You can even read the book online. I would encourage not only the Metro staff to read this book, but also the Commission and our stakeholders in community. I think it could stimulate a conversation that could help us build upon our already great services.