Notes from Stephen Abram speech at the Association for Rural and Small Libraries Annual Conference,  Columbus, Ohio, September 26-29, 2007.  Written by Valerie Osborne for the Maine Library Community.  Valerie’s attendence at this conference, along with five other Maine librarians, was funded by a Rural Sustainability Grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Libraries and the Future

Are libraries becoming obsolete?  Are we losing our ability to compete in the Google world?  Are we positioned to make our place known in the future world of advancing technology?  Can we even compete with the changes in technology that are emerging at such a rapid pace or will we become outdated as well?  According to Stephen Abram, Vice President of Innovation for SirsiDynix, there is still time. 

Keynote Speaker, Stephen Abram – Libraries must embrace new technologies

Mr. Abram was the keynote speaker at the Annual Conference of the Association for Rural and Small Libraries that took place in Columbus, Ohio in September. Thanks to the generosity of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, WebJunction, and the Rural Sustainability Project, six of us from Maine were able to attend the conference.  As Mr. Abram’s spoke of the future I looked around the room to get a sense of what my fellow attendees were feeling.  I saw faces that registered both, to coin a somewhat unpopular phrase, shock and awe.  According to the speaker, the library of the future is only partially the library we all know and love.  If we want to remain a viable entity those of us who work in and for libraries must do a better job at embracing the new technologies that will be driving our world.

Web 2.0 social software today and the future

Abram made the statement that most of us believe that the computer has revolutionized our world and how we do business daily, but he contends that what we have seen so far is only the foundation for what the next fifteen years will bring.  Libraries, he says, need to embrace social software in this context.  Just look at the claim about how the new Web 2.0 social software such as YouTube, Second Life, NowPublic, Wikipedia, Facebook, MySpace, and Ning are impacting the 2008 presidential election.  Most of the candidates know that if they want to win the election they must utilize their tools to get their messages across.  What does that mean for our libraries?   It is mind boggling to say the least!  What does this mean for how schools approach learning?  Does it mean educators and school librarians have to become less restrictive in what we allow this generation of learners to access if they are to become competitive in the world that they will inhabit as productive members of society?  

 Several times Mr. Abram quoted the 2005 Pew Internet and American Life report titled “ Teen Content Creators and Consumers.”  I went to the report myself to see what it had to say about our teen population.  The report showed that “American teenagers today are utilizing the interactive capabilities of the Internet as they create and share their own media creations.  Fully half of all teens and 57 percent of teens that use the Internet could be considered content creators.  They have created a blog or Web page, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations.  Teens are often much more enthusiastic authors and readers of blogs than their adult counterparts. Teen bloggers, led by older girls, are a major part of the tech-savvy cohort.  Teen bloggers are more fervent Internet users than non-bloggers and have more experience with almost every online activity in the survey.  Teen Content Creators and Consumers:  More than half of online teens have created content for the Internet; and most teen downloaders think that getting free music files is easy to do.”

Teens are embracing the future – will you?

According to this report, the majority of teens are embracing the future.  What does that mean for us?   As they move into adulthood, will the public library be able to serve their needs or will they even come to us for assistance?  Will we be in a position to provide the services they will demand of us?   Do we embrace these new technologies that are bursting through the hemisphere at what seems like the speed of light or do we sit on the sidelines?  Mr. Abram’s keynote speech was provocative, challenging and totally mind boggling.  I don’t think I was the only one sitting in the audience that day that felt this way.  As I thought about his presentation later I asked myself what I could do as a library consultant to prepare those whom I serve to meet these huge challenges.  The only answer is training, training, and more training!  For many of the small libraries in Maine who are run by volunteer staffs with next to no funding, this is going to be a monumental challenge with many adjustments that will be necessary to meet the demands of the future.  

The library as the heartbeat of the community and its needs

While what I learned in Ohio was very provocative, it also validated my firmly held view that if our public libraries are going to remain viable in the future we must make them more responsive to the needs of our communities.  Those needs will no doubt be reflected in the technologies we make available and/or utilize in our libraries, but there will also be other needs.  Strong programming for youth and adults; good reader’s advisory that make your patrons come back time and time again; and reference services that utilizes not only print materials and electronic databases, but the many emerging tools as they become available to us.  Make a library the focal point of the community and it will become integral to the heartbeat of that community.  From everything I heard that day in Columbus, Ohio the future is now! 

Visit WebJunction to download slides from Stephen Abram’s address at the ARSL conference; Columbus, Ohio; 9/27/07

Complete 2007 ARSL Conference Highlights on WebJunction – Check them out!