Internet Librarian

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my libraries? I’m a very proud and satisfied holder of library cards from three great systems: the University of Washington, Seattle Public Library, and King County Library System. Each gives me great service and represents high levels of professionalism and innovation. (As an aside, they’ve all also been great friends and supporters of our school, as has the rest of the information world in our region.)

As much as I value and use these libraries, each in its own way, I am substantially more likely to “use” them while sitting here in my office, or at home, or while on the road than by wandering in the door. The main university library is maybe 20 yards from my building, and my neighborhood branch is about five blocks from my house, so it’s not strictly a matter of proximity.

Apart from using the university library for teaching purposes (my most frequent reason), a typical physical visit includes picking up books I’ve requested or put on hold. I might browse the new-books shelf, perhaps look at the bulletin board, peek at an exhibit—that sort of thing. If I’m being totally honest, sometimes I watch what other people are doing, out of total curiosity (am I the only one who does that?).

My heaviest use of each is, unsurprisingly, digital: searching the catalog and databases, using library websites, printing out articles, placing those holds, asking reference questions via e-mail or chat, or looking for reading recommendations. I imagine that in this regard I’m not that unusual, and that there are substantial numbers of people for whom the same is true.

It would be easy to think of those sorts of uses as somehow remote, different, even lesser than in-person visits; and on some levels they are different, since obviously there are things you can do while in the building you can’t do when you’re not, and in a few cases vice versa.

There are far more ways, however, in which all these kinds of visits are the same. When I’m searching ProQuest from home or requesting a book from Philadelphia, in a very real sense I’m in the library. For that matter, any time I’m interacting with the stuff or the staff, regardless of our relative physical locations, I’m in the library.

An expanded notion

This may seem a foreign concept at first, but it’s really just an expanded notion of “library” (and thus “librarianship”); the idea of the library has always been bigger than the building itself, which is a necessary and convenient place for storing things. It also makes a great meeting place, touchstone for the community, and symbol for the values we share and uphold. That building stands for something, and we should be proud of the places it occupies in the minds of our clienteles.

But it’s also no longer the extent of the library. As our “things” increasingly no longer require physical storage, the idea of the library continues to extend beyond those buildings. This shouldn’t be an uncomfortable idea—libraries have been trying to leak out of their shells for decades; why else do we have branches, bookmobiles, interlibrary loan, outreach programs, and telephone reference?

In an increasingly digital world, the idea of the library has to be somewhere and everywhere: real, physical locations as well as ubiquitous access. Neither alone will suffice in meeting the varied and expanding needs of our communities, and neither alone expresses the true nature and usefulness of what a “library” is and can be (and ought to be and has to be) in the 21st century.

There’s more, but I’m out of space . . . so it’ll have to be another story for next time! See y’all in Anaheim.