Future Has Arrived for Library

Letter of the Day News, Rapid City Journal | Tuesday, June 09, 2009

JUST HAD TO ASK:  Greta Chapman, director, Rapid City Public  Library.

THE QUESTION: Rapid City Public Library has been recognized for its efforts in embracing new technology and they’re also digitally archiving oral history of the 1972 flood. What new technology should patrons  expect to see in the coming years?

In the library of the future, patrons will be creating content as fast as they consume it.

Online information swirls around us like dust storms and librarians are the information guides for readers with Web sites, blogs, wikis and a host of other  online resources. Librarians will  become the packagers of local  information, databasing community history, promotion of digital citizenship and community engagement, and working with local educational institutions to provide online access to learning and job training. Fortunately, at the Rapid City Public  Library, that future has already  arrived.

As the social web has taken off, the Rapid City Public Library has incorporated new tools to help patrons navigate the storms of information. Through social networking sites (such as Facebook or MySpace), social tagging sites (such as Flickr and Youtube) and blogs, a remarkable amount of information is being provided to patrons without ever having them set foot in the library. For many patrons, blogs have replaced cable and network news. Wikis have supplanted encyclopedias. Twitter and Facebook have usurped the aging medium of e-mail. In today’s  library, more space is provided for computers to give everyone access to the dynamic online world.

Web 2.0 changes not so much “what” the library provides, but “how” we provide it. Patrons still ask questions, but now those questions can be posed in a multitude of ways. They come face-to-face, over-the-phone, by e-mail or instant message, through a blog, across a tweet or by way of a social networking site.

For libraries the process of gathering information is also changing. It is no longer completely unilateral or one-sided. It has become participatory and engaging. It is less of a question and more of a conversation. Patrons do not just read and ingest information anymore; they to participate in its creation and to mold its evolution. As libraries continue to adapt, they are no long passive users of information sources like books and magazines. In collaboration with their patrons, they are active producers and packagers of information as well.

Even the card catalogue reflects this process of change. The wooden drawers gave way to the online catalogue years ago. With Library 2.0 the catalogue is now becoming a forum where staff and patrons can review and discuss books. Using an online tool called LibraryThing, patrons can add their own book collections and libraries to the database expanding the knowledge base in a community dramatically.

So what can patrons expect from this Library 2.0 movement? Well, they can expect exactly what they got in the past: Reliable information and librarians engaged with patrons. Only now this information can be delivered in faster, newer and more effective ways. Library 2.0 brings the library closer to the community and breaks down barriers of distance and time. Soon, we will have online book clubs along with round-table discussions; podcasts along with Lunch and Learn; Streaming Story-Times as well as the sit-down story-times; tweets and texting to provide real-time answers to the questions that drive our community’s desire to learn. With Library 2.0 we’re in a world where information moves at the speed of light and answers come almost as fast as questions form in our minds.