Goodbye, Books! Hello, MySpace?

There’s been a lot of talk about the end of books, and the death of the printed word. But this doesn’t really concern me. I ride the packed subway trains to and from work everyday, and watch as sometimes half of the other commuters sit down and crack open a book. I serve lines of patrons looking for new books: popular mainstream fiction, urban fiction, mysteries, thrillers, romance, and science fiction. I distribute countless volumes of nonfiction: biographies, travel guides, historical accounts, test guides. Like the United States as a whole, New York is a city of immigrants, a city of lifetime learners. Reading is an experience that can’t be replaced by movies, music, or video games. The act of reading is here to stay, and printed books, well, they still have some time left.

But I’m concerned about libraries that seem to be ignoring emerging technologies, especially those associated with Web 2.0. There seems to be this trend in the library field of being traditional, rigid, and stubborn. It seems so strange to me, though, because by nature, libraries should be flexible. Libraries exist to serve the needs of their patrons and must change with the growing needs of the community.

I can’t imagine a better time to be a librarian. While the book is not necessarily going anywhere, we are also seeing the emergence of new literacies and new ways for people to learn and grow. I’ve heard the comment that people are only visiting libraries now to use the computers; as if this is somehow divergent from the mission of public libraries. Regardless of race, class, or age, people are packing public libraries and using computers to access information and, believe it or not, they are reading.

As Linda W. Braun notes in "Reading: It’s Not Just About Books Anymore" (2007), teenagers are logging onto MySpace and reading profiles, blogs, and comments. There is no shortage of streaming audio and video, but Web 2.0 is primarily text-based. Many librarians are embracing Web 2.0 with open arms, and hopefully many more will realize the potential for these technologies.

Citations: Braun, Linda W. Reading: It's Not Just About Books Anymore, YALS, Summer 2007.