[OPLINLIST] FW: [District Dispatch] Will there be contemplation in future libraries?

[Hickson-Stevenson, Pamela]

An interesting and thought-provoking piece from ALA...

 

Pamela J. Hickson-Stevenson, Ohio Chapter Councilor to ALA and

Assistant Director

Akron-Summit County Public Library

60 S. High Street

Akron, OH  44326

 

Phone 330.643.9102          Fax 330.643.9160

phs at akronlibrary.org        www.akronlibrary.org

Recognized as one of America's Best Libraries      

 

The Akron-Summit County Public Library provides resources for learning and leisure, information services, meeting spaces, and programs for all ages that support, improve, and enrich individual, family, and community life.

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: jterry at alawash.org [mailto:jterry at alawash.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 9:42 AM
To: district at ala.org
Subject: [District Dispatch] Will there be contemplation in future libraries?

 

FULL POST: http://bit.ly/9qqFzd 

--

District Dispatch has posted a new item, 'Will there be contemplation in future

libraries?'

 

When I’m not occupied with urgent matters (aka firefighting), my

preoccupation is the future of libraries. 

 

Here, this topic is known as “America’s Libraries for the 21st Century,”

a formal OITP Program—though obviously this theme cuts across all of the

office’s work.  Of course, the digital revolution currently taking place

challenges the services, content, physical organization, staffing, funding, and

every other facet of libraries.  Indeed, the investigation of these topics is

addressed in recent OITP policy briefs:  Fiber to the Library, Checking Out the

Future, and There’s an App for That!

 

Some of our inquiry depends on seemingly direct lines of thought, such as the

rise of high-speed broadband, mobile technology, or e-books, and the

consequences for libraries and public policy.  But there are also less obvious

implications.  I’ve been contemplating one of these implications for the past

months—which is, well, “contemplation.”  But reading Nicholas Carr’s

latest book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, has

re-energized my thinking about this topic.

 

The advent of widespread networking, digital content, and the Web is causing a

shift towards a fundamentally different way of information access, which may be

characterized as unpredictable, dynamic, abbreviated, and frenetic.  Of course,

this is not news to us folks in the library community, steeped in e-mails, text

messaging, Facebook, Twitter, Web surfing, and so on.  These new capabilities

have great benefits and many of us couldn’t imagine living without them. 

Among other things, people can now integrate and link diverse people, places,

and pieces of information in ways that could not have been even imagined

before—and enable us to think in new ways—or, alternatively, to rewire our

brains to compel us to think in new ways.

 

But there is a potential downside to this rewiring.  Some—or many of

us—have increasingly short attention spans and difficulty in concentrating on

longer-term tasks such as reading a book (much less writing a book).  This

phenomenon resonates with my personal experience—indeed just trying to read

Carr’s book took some effort—it isn’t conducive to reading a book when

checking e-mail every 10 minutes…  I can even get impatient with e-mails of

multiple paragraphs.

 

And what of libraries?  Contemplation is central to traditional library

services and uses:  Reading books, newspapers, and magazines; doing homework

(offline); participating in storytelling hour; playing a board game; or

daydreaming (uninterrupted by electronic gadgetry).  How will future libraries

support contemplative activity of this kind when the technology encourages the

opposite?  Or does it even matter?

 

Will contemplation become mostly the province of an elite few as it was

centuries ago?    Broad access to intellectual works to facilitate thinking

beyond society’s elites is a recent phenomenon in historical terms, enabled

by the widespread creation of public libraries in the 20th century—thanks

again, Mr. Carnegie.

 

Might “contemplation” become the new digital divide?  Can future libraries

be shaped as a venue to promote contemplation?  Should they?  If so, who will

become the Andrew Carnegie of the 21st century?

 

Alan Inouye, Ph.D.

Director, Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) 

 

You may view the latest post at

http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/?p=5283

 

You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are

posted.

Best regards,

Jacob Roberts

jroberts at alawash.org

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