What about the Future?

A month ago, Russell Library's Director, Arthur Myers, asked me to talk to the Middletown Rotarians about the future of libraries in Connecticut. (My talk was yesterday, the first in a series of three talks about libraries that he has planned for Rotary this month--I'm glad I got to go first!) I've copied the speech below, so you can see for yourself, but I realized, when it was over, even though it was fairly well-received (low expectations?) that it is about libraries; it is not about the future. I was flummoxed when one of the Rotarians, who had just read The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture by John Battelle, asked me about online searching, in the not-too-distant future, without any of this authentication or proprietariness that I had been describing. (I mean, one doesn't expect to be caught off-guard about techno stuff at Rotary. I recovered somewhat by doing what the big guys do--changing the subject to something I do know about, in this case, France's challenge to Apple regarding the iPod/iTunes monopoly. Why? It always distracts people to talk about the French, because we can all agree to disdain them.) I guess my point is that many of us think we are addressing the future when we are really discussing the present possible. News about Skype, the voice over IP company now owned by eBay, is the subject of an article in this morning's New York Times Business section, hardly the bleeding edge. I heard about Skype for the first time last summer when Carl Antonucci and I went to Denver forr a Virtual Reference conference and heard the uninvited young entrepreneur, Brian Higgenbottom, talk about Skype as the way he communicates with international clients. We were so impressed that we invited Brian to come from Houston to West Hartford for CLC's first Trendspotting confab last fall. It was there that Wesleyan's Mike Roy introduced us to learning objects, and then later the CLC board invited Mike to bring us up-to-date on blogs. Where am I going with this? Is it just that we need to invite young guys to speak to us at conferences if we want to predict the future? Well, partly. We need to be aware that, as practitioners of the sacred science of libraries, we are not usually steeped in the future. That is hard to do when you are running an operation for teh public. (I realize that many of my forward-thinking colleagues are thinking, "speak for yourself, Chris!" but I know I'm not the only one.) My point is that we need to listen to those among us and just outside our circle who really are futurists. We need to know what is really likely to happen ten years out, not just what we are hoping to introduce in next year's budget. Not that there is anything wrong with being practical. That is what sustains us. It is just not enough. So back to the future we should go, whenver we can breakaway from the present possible.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Chris' Rotary speech on April 4, 2006 at the First and Last Tavern in Middletown:

Arthur has asked me to talk briefly about the future of libraries in CT. Although I’m sure you all respect Arthur, as I do, and love the Russell Library, many of you might share the view of my sainted mother, who, a few years ago, said, "Well, I guess you'll be out of a job now with the Internet."
We know that libraries have a past. No less an historian than ArthurSchlesingerR said, “Our history has been greatly shaped by people who read their way to opportunity and achievement in public libraries.” And Dwight D. Eisenhower said “Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book.” and my personal favorite, the Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges, “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
But that was then, and Arthur asked me to talk about the future, not the past, and about libraries in Connecticut, not Argentina.
Last year in CT, our 182 public libraries reported 1,944,000 registered borrowers, better than half our population, but that was down 5000 from the previous year. CT had 6 library visits per capita, but that was also down from 6.2 the previous year. Total reference transactions were down by 25,000. And the circulation of library materials, is down from 31 million items to just over 30 million items. These statistics are not declining precipitously, but down is down. One of the librarians quoted in a recent national report said it well--"We are serving you better, seeing you less."
CT's library statistics show that we are definitely seeing you less, but are we serving you better? And how is better defined, especially for the future?
I have four key words to define the future of CT's libraries-- information, socialization, education, and collaboration.
First, information. We used to have it all, you know. If you wanted consumer reports or the city directory, the used car price guide, or Value line, unless you were independently wealthy, you pretty much had to come to the public library. But no more.
You don’t have to go to the Russell Library on Broad St. You just have to go online to http://www.russelllibrary.org/, and it's all there. The CT digital library has databases of national newspapers, consumer health, and business info. Russell has all those Chilton auto repair manuals online, special databases to help middle school and high school kids with their homework, and testing manuals with civil service, real estate, and insurance exams. You don't have to go out to the library to get this information. You just have to get online at your home computer.
In the very near future, we'll have online reference librarians to help you with all that information, and right now, today, you can download audiobooks from the Russell Library website, so no matter how bad your commute is, there is no excuse for road rage.
But, if you do actually visit the Russell Library, you won't be alone, because the second key word in the future of libraries is socialization. In CT, there are just 2.5 people in the average household, and 14% of our population is over 65. These people want a place to go. Retirees nationally are looking for good weather, good golf, good healthcare, and good public libraries. Now we can't do anything about the weather in CT, but the pressure will be on public libraries in CT to be a social assembly place for retiring baby boomers. We have over 180 public libraries in our 169 CT towns. Out west, they may have one county library system to serve an area twice the size of our entire state. But that is not our way in Connecticut. Each CT town supports its own library, often on the town green, always at the center of the community. The public library is fast becoming the community's third place, the place that is not work or home. Libraries are following the lead of bookstores in merchandising the reading experience not only for older adults, but also for preschoolers and their parents, teens, and working people.
The third key, education, is not only the future, but also the traditional, mission of the public library. This is the place where new immigrants such as authors Frank McCourt and Esmeralda Santiago came to learn about America and how to succeed here. 11% of the CT population is foreign born and 18% of households speak a language other than English. The ethnic groups who come to the library in the future may be different from those who are here now, but their purpose will remain the same. One-on-one tutoring, both virtual and actual, will remain the province of the public library. Newly built or renovated library buildings have increased numbers of small meeting rooms for group study, and homeschooling, as well as one-on-one tutoring. And the earliest education that many of us remember in the library, the preschool story hour, is alive and well and multiplying on into the future.
Finally, the last key to the future is collaboration, because sustainability is not possible without it, not for museums, or historical societies or public recreation and cultural activities as well as for public libraries. The national public library planning process, which we use in CT, stresses cooperation and collaboration so that citizens are served by the most appropriate service provider, and those providers supported by each other. Public funding for these and other community services is increasingly hard to come by in CT's towns and cities. When I was on my town council years ago, I remember seeing public education taking a bigger and bigger bite of the municipal pie and that has not stopped, especially as state support has decreased proportionately. There just isn't a lot left over after providing for public education and public safety, and those retirees are not looking to increase revenues through taxation. Many national figures including Paco Underhill, who recently spoke at the public library association's national conference in Boston, say that libraries should encourage people to think of us in their estate planning and that public libraries should investigate non-governmental funding sources.
So, that is the future as I see it. Information will increasingly be provided virtually through online databases and digitization projects; Socialization will be encouraged and the public library will become the third place in the community; education will remain at the heart of the library matter; and public libraries in Connecticut will be sustained by collaborating with community partners so we can all make through those cold dark winters together!