CC BY
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УДК 02
ACTUAL PROBLEMS OF LIBRARY PRACTICE (REVIEW)
Аннотация. В обзоре, подготовленном Ю. В. Гушул, приведены высказывания практиков (руководителей библиотек, глав подразделений, рядовых сотрудников библиотечного, информационного, технического направлений деятельности) о перспективах развития и проблемных зонах современного библиотечного дела. Мнения могут быть объединены в смысловые активно дискутируемые темы, среди которых к наиболее обсуждаемым относятся: имидж библиотеки в информационном обществе и статус библиотекаря, библиотечное образование — актуальность и возможность пересмотра получаемых и востребованных обществом и практикой компетенций, библиотечный маркетинг, «когда библиотека закрыта», общество без библиотек, библиотека как образовательное пространство, библиотека как место социальной адаптации, «зеленая библиотека» и др.
Обзор можно рассматривать как продолжение дискуссии в разделе «Социокультурное проектирование новой библиотеки», начатой в журнале в январе 2013 г. и продолжаемой в каждом номере. Формулируемыми мнениями практики заявляют о своих проблемах, стараются активизировать теоретические исследования философского, культурологического, социологического, исторического, педагогического, психологического направлений в поиске интеллектуальных смыслов, в аргументации будущего библиотеки, информации, библиотекаря в информационном обществе.
Ключевые слова: имидж библиотеки, имидж библиотекаря, библиотека как третье место, доступ к ресурсам библиотеки, доступность библиотеки, профессиональные компетенции библиотекаря, библиотечное сотрудничество
Abstract. Short review by Yu. V. Gushul contains a lot of usual information of prospect and problem zones of the modern librarianship from librarian's point of view. Libraries and librarians are going out of their cocoon, to meet their public, to offer him more fun and culture. This is an example among others of library services "outside the walls". Librarians put a lot of questions that have yet to answer the Information Society, such as: How to capture now customers? How to communicate about our roles with politics, with the public, etc.? How to meet our patrons? What cooperation between digital makers and librarians? The role of Public Libraries in Lifelong learning. Moral, political, ideological, religious are in the library, Balancing Librarians and Library Technician roles in the Library and many others.
Keywords: image of a library, image of a librarian, library as a third place, access to library resources, library cooperation, the role of libraries in the information society, public library
Cycling for libraries is a politically and economically independent international unconference for librarian and library lovers. Cycling for libraries supports grassroots networking, and internationalism, physical and mental well-being of library professionals, and 'last but not least' the crucial role of libraries for the society and for the intellectual and scientific education in general. Cycling for libraries also supports environmental values and ecological way of life. Many values inherited from librarianship are present here: openness, liberalism, access to information, lifelong learning and innovativeness. Librarianship is also by it's very nature humanist, internationalist, cross-boundary and hands-on.
Librarians discuss library issues, information science, concepts of the third place, digitization processes, searching engines of Google, Yandex or whatever own searching engines, cataloging,
open sources, Decimal Classification, library services for children or disabled and so on depending on the own involvements.
Discussion topics are going every year and in the future will be interesting to study dynamics of their changes. We suggest a short review of the librarian's opinions of prospect and problem zones of the modern librarianship which theorists of the librarianship should reflect and to do scientific researches taking it as a basis the practical needs of libraries. We already have experience to publish librarian's opinions in the scientific journal [3]. The practice is an experimental field for theorists.
This review may be considered as a basis for further discussion started by articles [1; 2]. Librarians put a lot of questions that have yet to answer the Information Society. All of these divide into next
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themes: Innovative users for Library spaces; Lifelong learning; Library marketing; Digital inclusion e-inclusion - Social inclusion; Free of charge and so on. What's your opinion of it? Focus: advocacy for libraries. We know well that, despite of big evolution those last years, libraries still have in France a very nerdy and dusty image, which doesn't - most of time -match with reality anymore. So we have to break this image and promote a new one.
Pascal Wagner, a small-medium library in Saint-Jean-de-Védas, http://bm-stjeandevedas.fr, President of ABF (Association des Bibliothécaires de France) from address 2010 to address 2013, http://www.abf.asso.fr/. I'm working on the book supply modes of library users: what do they buy, what do they borrow, and on what basis do they make these decisions? My issue: bookstores, record stores and other cultural retailers are closing. How this will affect the libraries? How libraries shall address this issue in their communities?
Stéphane LABBÉ. I'm a PhD student in Montreal, Canada I work in a public library in Paris, where I organize all the events (book club, concert, story time, etc.). So I would like to focus on what the libraries can do to attract more people and what are the different responses to this problem in the library world, what works or not. I work in a very popular part of Paris and it's really difficult to find a way to attract people or even to interest them: film projection, story telling isn't really working, as soon as the child is over 10. So I would like to find other ideas, long-term projects to help me.
Sophie Courtel, Paris, France Balancing Librarians and Library Technician roles in the Library: in today's libraries the roles between librarians and library technicians have become blurred and overlapped. This overlap can become an issue when dealing with job descriptions and knowing your role within the library. Traditionally technicians are required to support the librarian, but more often than not there are not enough librarian positions available, so the library technician fills the role and blurs the line. In other
circumstances some libraries have a suffice number of librarians, however the roles are still blurred in terms of splitting up tasks amongst all staff which causes the job description to overlap once again. It is interesting to see how or if other libraries face issues with unclear job descriptions or if they find a healthy balance for both library professions.
This could happen in two totally different types of libraries. A library that has continued to grow quickly along with a city has to accommodate this fast growth and thus staff is assigned jobs as needed. This causes a blur in job descriptions and can cause some issues between staff members who are librarians or technicians and do not understand where the line is between their two jobs. The same issue could happen to a library where jobs are being cut and thus causing more jobs to be assigned to the staff members that are left. Do other libraries have this issue? What is the best way to deal with this issue in libraries?
The line that used to be very firm is now almost non-existent; however are the titles between staff doing the same tasks the major thing that separates them? Do other libraries see this as a balancing act between the two professions? What are some of the solutions that allow the lines to be blurred and yet still maintain a healthy work environment?
Finding out if other libraries are having that same overlap between the two professions will be something of key interest for me. Also finding out if other individuals are filling roles in libraries that are different from what they graduated with; for example being a librarian in an assistant role, and if this causes issues.
Courtney Sutherland, Canada
I'm working for ABES, a French institution providing digital ressources and services for university and research libraries all around France. My own speciality is heritage documents and here is the beginning of a kind of discrepancy. For me the computerization of our jobs and lifes is a strong matter of thinking: is our role to boost our society's speeding up with one of its major fuel, i.e. information? Can we slow down, can we move elsewhere, and how? Is there a balance between computer-based and human-(librarians) based services
Jean-Marie Feurtet, France
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I'm interested in promoting and disseminating workshop activities in public libraries. My question / problem is How to do this? Workshops are new kind of Library activities in Finland. We have a few of them already. In Library workshops it is possible: 3D printing, laminating, sewing, stickers, ads, VHS, c-cassettes, LP and Super-8 film digitizing etc. Our customers have found these Workshops in our libraries and they use them a lot. But some important politicians consider that these Workshops are not essential in Libraries. In their thoughts libraries should maybe keep on going like "in the old times". Once again: It's all about attitudes: most of the decision makers maybe think that It's ok for Libraries to renew all things - but in a conservative way!!! How could we convince the librarians, the libraries, the politicians about the need of radical thinking and new kind of services? And how about our own staff? How radical / conservative we are in the libraries? If we really want to renew libraries and to think everything all over again, how can we show this in our daily life in the libraries? Lauri Holopainen, Sello library, Espoo, Finland The image of the library. I like the idea of "third place library", after home and work... Even if we change in the mind of our members, for the majority of the others we stay a library with just books and a place where they have to respect silence. I search answers (but not too expensive too!). Maybe with very big, very original animation? Maybe with a great campaign of communication? Maybe with more and more opening hours? I really would like find something for everybody (almost!) come one time in the library. After they will come back if they want.
Gaelle Bourdon, a library in a village of3500persons, Gallardon, near Chartres, France How to alter the public image of a librarian -from a dull person, handling old dusty books to a special personal guide in a complex world of knowledge and numerous choices. But apart from that, librarians in fact do have many skills. We can recommend you a good book. We can find an address. We can show you, how your new smartphone works, and how to use e-books on your iPad. We order professional articles directly to your home, even though we do not understand one bit of
the content. We bring you digital literacy. The author Neil Gaiman puts it this way: "Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one". Many of a librarian's skills is unspoken. We do not have paper on them, we have not been taught it. That's just how it is. We are curious, we are a little detective alike, we will not give up, until you have the answer, you came for. We have a good sense for what it is you really mean, when you ask for something, even when you do not realize what you really want. So maybe a part of the problem is, that the Library Schools do not teach the things, we really need in the public libraries. Last month we advertised a new job in my library "Eventmaker and First Mover" We had 50+ applicants but only 4 educated libraians!
Bo Jacobsen, Denmark Can a public library really be for all? And does it have to be? I guess everyone agrees on that public libraries should be accessible for all, no matter age, sex, health, ethnicity etc. Can they though really be attractive for all and do they have to be? At my workplace we are aware of that we don't reach the majority of the inhabitants of the area. We are a small library in a multicultural suburb of Stockholm. The place is still pretty crowded many hours each day and our visitors are mainly children and youth. We talk quite often about reaching to new target groups, we try but sometimes we succeed and sometimes we don't. It's been raising some questions and thoughts for me. How can we satisfy different groups of users (not to say about "all") on a small area with four co-workers? For example, the existing problem is that acceptable sound level differs for a kindergarten group and newspaper readers. Is it worth to use our limited resources to work actively on reaching new groups? It is usually long and demanding process, what is the cost of such work? (I mean some other group of users will get less attention then). How can we examine which groups would appreciate our services? Is it better to focus on those who already are our users, listen to their needs and give good service to them? Where is the border of satisfying the needs of a small number of users so that it won't become a "private" library? Does really everybody need a library? For example, many of my friends aged 25-35 almost never go to libraries even though
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they read a lot (buying and exchanging books with friends) and are active culture consumers in other ways. Shall libraries compete with other organisations/ institutions/etc. for their attention? Is it a good idea to specialise a public library and/or choose a profile?
Katarzyna Kasprzyk, Sweden The topic I would like to discuss is what nowadays ideally should be included in the curriculum of a Library School. What competencies are required in future librarians? Should the emphasis be on communicative skills? Pedagogical? Technical? Is a Library School degree still necessary? Could other degrees be sufficient, e.g. teaching degree, cultural worker, computer professional?
Eva Simon, a teacher at the Library School
of Ghent, Belgium Outreach is an integral part of bringing in new library users, and marketing the wonderful services the library provides. This year, I'd like to learn about creative and unique ways libraries reach out to people who do not normally use the library. Currently, my university has an initiative to help students from underrepresented groups succeed academically, with a focus on the first-year. The library plays a very important role in this, but not all students come to college with the skills necessary to do well and they don't always see the library as central to their academic success. How can the library help them develop these skills? What can we do to better market our services and resources?
Annie Pho, academic librarian, University of
Illinois, Chicago Is a discovery system the best search engine for scientists and students or is the "old" way still the best way to get relevant literature? I am working in a small scientific library. Due to the change the way scientists and students search for information and literature we are thinking of introducing a discovery system. Users ask for a simple, easy to use search engine that covers a wide range of databases and information resources. But is the result really what they want to have? They get a huge amount of hits and have to check them. Would the "old" way, a specific search, to search for information not be better and it is just about to introduce or train the users more? What is the experience of those who already use a discovery system?
Melanie Groh, Germany
I am responsible for acquisitions of thrillers, science-fiction books, and audio books, and participate in activities related to these themes. Until now we have also lent digital books but we had problems with our supplier, some publishers triple the documents price while limiting the number of loans. I am therefore absolutely curious about how the colleagues have made the "digital turn" and how they do for the loan of e-books in library.
Emmanuel Quentin, library "André Malraux", Beziers, France
How do we manage our staff, technology, collections, and buildings to ensure an ongoing role for libraries in the future? Libraries are entering into a new era in which new technologies such as smartphones, tablets, and e-books are transforming the nature of the services that libraries provide. Over 1/2 of the reference interactions taking place in our library now are related to technological issues, but the staff that are working in the reference department are struggling with these types of issues because they were hired for their reference skills not their technical skills. How can we ensure that staff have the technical skills necessary to address the needs of the library's patrons? As well, in our library, the number of books being circulated has not increased in a number of years and is starting to decline. Similarly, the number of people coming into the library is also in decline. What can be done to stop this decline of circulation and visits? What can be done to increase these numbers? I'm also interested in new and innovative ideas that libraries have come up with to improve the customer experience. In particular, I am interested in new and interesting ways to integrate technology into library services. Also, as the size of print collections decline with the move to ebook formats, what are some innovative uses of the space that may be freed up in the library? We are exploring the makerspace idea at our library as one option, but I'd like to hear about other non-traditional uses of physical spaces.
Finally, I'm interested in ways to make the library a more comfortable, fun, and inviting place to be and to work. Sometimes I feel that as a profession, librarians get too wrapped in their jobs and forget the fun and joy of working in a library. I'd love to find ways to encourage staff (including myself) to rekindle their passion for libraries. I'd also like to find
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ways to change the public perception of libraries, so that libraries are not thought of as dusty tombs but as lively and enriching spaces that people want to be at.
Cory Stier, acting Manager - Public Services, Red Deer Public Library, Alberta, Canada My focus: Academic and Public Library cooperation. I work in the library of the university of Poitiers in France. We are currently working on a partnership with the public library of the town. Our 23 000 students are often unaware of the resources and services offered by the public Library; the residents of the town do not attend University libraries. What services expand to meet the needs of these audiences? How to develop exchanges between professionals from both networks? How to provide additional resources?
Gilles Russeil, France E-materials - threat and possibility? I'm interested in how to save, use and share material that way it remains reliable, solid and available. Are the electronic systems the answer? How are things in the future, example changing formats, copyrights? In other hand people are more and more letting the searching machines do the job and getting answer's from first result. Also there is e-books, e-readers, tabs etc. What is the libraries role in the future? Is the printed text slowly coming to its end?
Riina Kuivalainen, Mikkeli, Finland How can I provide a modern service with all the last technologies (tablet, numeric books.) when there are less than 1500 inhabitants? Furthermore, the library is only 50m2 and the village isina rural department. Obstinately, the others librarian and I try to attract people, using good books as well as good food. We want to prove that culture can be spread here too, far away from cities. We want to show that sharing knowledge is something everyone can do and that the village's library is a place to meet other people. Our library is not only a place to find information but also an important place for the social life of our village. But our most important problem is the cost of this public service, supported by our rural village. Moreover, we have to modernize our equipment (numeric books, tablet, projector) as well as managing formation to keep on with these technologies. "Rural & Modern": this could be our library's motto. But today, it's just our goal.
Géraldine Zorer, Coulombs, France
My focus: how to adapt our communication and library services to a changing context. The context we are working in is changing rapidly: new communication media, changing user profiles & user behaviour, a changing organisation, a changing information landscape, the growing importance of digital information sources, and so on... The question is: how can we adapt or anticipate to these changes, and how can we transform them into new opportunities? In order to remain relevant in an educational context, we'll have to redefine the role of our library. Our skills as information and content managers can be useful when we look for new services. New skills will be necessary for the library staff, but more than ever we'll have to look for closer collaboration with other partners within or outside the organization. Communication with our (potential) customers is essential. In our communication strategy, we try to integrate the interesting opportunities created by the variety of new (social) media. They also create new challenges: how to keep telling a coherent, integrated story with a diversity of media.
Dirk Bogaerts, Artevelde University college
Ghent, Belgium In an immaterial information context, what about physical collections and new skills to develop? At a time where knowledge is becoming immaterial, and is being spread and shared on the Internet at fast speeds, how can libraries justify growing and shining a light on their collections so they remain of interest to the public? What if the challenge no longer lied in the collections themselves but rather in services, be it marketed events, more welcoming facilities, or ease of access to said collections (no longer offering on-site access only). What new set of skills do professionals need to develop?
Bénédicte Fauvet-Messat & Anne Réty, Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon, www.bm-lyon.fr, France Alternate service delivery and the library experience. I live in a big and rapidly growing city where we are looking at strategies to ensure that everyone has the service they need and want, even in communities that have not had a library built yet. And in our existing buildings, when our open hours are often not enough to fit into people's busy lives; how can we provide a library experience to visitors to our buildings even when those buildings are closed? I am
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interested in ways that interactive technology or alternate service deliveries can help us provide service, an experience, and connection to others where we have no "library" and in our physical locations even when they are closed. We are currently planning for an "open" library which will be located in a busy recreation and community centre and will open in 2017. I would like to have some conversations about the service delivery model in that library.
Lisa Hardy, Calgary Public Library, Calgary, Alberta, Canada Use of Social Media and mobile technologies in libraries - particularly small special libraries. My library's primary function is to serve the information needs of the elected representatives of the Province of Nova Scotia. Our legislature was the first in Canada to tweet the happenings of the House. To date that's all we've really been able to to do. We have to be very careful what we post as we must remain nonpartisan (neutral). We're finding that more and more of our primary clientele are using mobile phones. We need to find a better way to deliver our products and services to them in a mobile environment.
David McDonald, Systems and Library Technology Manager, Nova Scotia Legislative Library, Canada The future of music and film in the library, the future of the library where I work and the future of the public library in general. I'm passionate too about the future role, necessary skills and needs of the front-office library assistant (or technician) in the library 2.0. So I guess my focus (if you can call it that, see below) will be very much: the future. Our library is housed in a protected monument of 70s library architecture and there are plans to renovate, even restyle it. But we are on a budget and there are building restrictions. We like our vintage library but we would also like to improve it. We are now figuring out what our role as a library for the people of Deurne will be. I'm interested to know how other libraries in a similar situation (plan to) tackle this, given the cuts in public spending, the pressure of introducing RFID/automated loan vs. the social aspects of our work, the rise of e-books, Spotify and Netflix? How do we saveguard our identity and reinvent ourselves at the same time, how do we to continue to address the needs of our patrons? How do
we find out those needs? Do we serve everyone or only special target groups? I read an article in the most recent issue of the blessed Scandinavian Library Quarterly entitled The public library's collection in a digital age, which provided me with an angle for my two main issues. If we are indeed to move from a collection oriented library to a citizen-centered library (as the writer of the article claims) what will be our role as front-office library staff? How do we know our collection, and what collection will that be? Will there still be one? How do we advise our patrons? Will they need our advice? Especially considering the fact that in our library network most back-office work is centralized but our culture policy is not. Like me, many of my co-workers have college or university degrees and a library certificate or degree. We are passionate about what library work we are still able to do in between checking items. Will our skills and talents continue to be needed and, if not, is there time and a budget to change that? Will we be able to use those newly acquired skills? What if organizing, presenting, teaching a group or networking are not ourforte? Which talents and skills can we develop, can we use other talents as yet underdeveloped? How do we learn other skills? Will cuts force us to do even less? Will RFID solve that problem? What do we need from our superiors to have job satisfaction and to continue to serve citizens the way we would like to and the way they deserve to be served?
Mariel Geens, music and film department of the district library of Deurne, Antwerp, Belgium How could we maximally utilize the opportunities/leeway given to libraries in the present 2001 Infosoc directive? Copyright is one of the main topics in my work, besides data protection, secrecy/privacy and of course contractual issues. But unlike for example in data protection, in copyright it is usually (with minor exceptions) possible to conclude agreements with the rights holders. What can we, the libraries that is, offer to rights holders (except money) in exchange for rights? Of course libraries also lobby through European organisations like LIBER, EBLIDA and CENL, in order to change the law. But this is a challenging road indeed...
Pekka Heikkinen, National Library, Finland Library as a third space and lifelong learning. I am interested in social role of modern libraries in
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local communities - how can we trully be recognized as third space, "living room" and "working room" of some communitiy? Which partners should we looking for, how to find lobbyists and how to create better public image of public libraries. We have experiences in working together with different organizations and associations of people with phisical and mental dissabilities, blind and visualy impaired people, minority groups (Roma people). These were successful programmes and activities and our library received national and international awards for some of them. But we want to do more - especially for those groups that have problems with social inclusion.
Kristian Ujlaki, Koprivnica, Croatia As a librarian, as a library user and as a wikipedian, I feel very concerned about information reliability in the digital world. How can libraries favour access to neutral information in a digital world? Within the vast amount of informations that web browsers index but no one is able to master, how can we help keep information unbiased? What role can libraries play to support, everywhere in the world, access to reliable information? As information becomes more open, it is also likely to be manipulated politically or commercially. What tools, both technological and conceptual, can we provide our users with in order to favour information neutrality? Though the mission of our libraries may never have been more necessary, there is a long way ahead before accomplishing it satisfactorily.
Antoine Torrens, Paris, France What does being a librarian today mean? Cultural organizer, information manager, purcha-
ser, computer scientist, marketing specialist .... are a part of the librarian's skills needed today. What about the role of the librarians dealing with evolution of the material and immaterial medium, the way of using the library, with the changes in the information seeking, and the evolution of the social context (more and more homeless or unemployed)? How can we succeed in understanding the needs of our (new) visitors? Which new skills do we have to get?
Virginie Eck, public library of Lyon, France I mean the way we work as librarians in a world where the pace of our lives is getting faster and faster. Underlying this issue is the role of new technologies: have they delivered the expected benefits they were supposed to give? In fact I would like to subscribe to this sentence of French movie-maker Pascale Ferran about her very last movie "Bird people" and share it with you: "I tried to see how the world would come into myself. With this time acceleration, this constant process, object and activity change make me crazy. Also, with the changing definition of public space that is increasingly becoming an extension of the private space due to the fact individuals can now extend their private sphere because of the technology progress. We say that the world is becoming more difficult to understand, but I have a different view and I'm ready to think that the outcome of this evolution will be positive. The fact of the matter is that we are numerous to hope for something different".
Jean-Philippe Aynie, academic library, Montpellier, France
References
1. Gushul, Yu. V. Modern library as a projectable socio-cultural space (problem definition) / Yu. V. Gushul, I. A. Kogenkin, K. B. Lavrova // Vestnik Chelyabinskoy gosudarstvennoy akademii kulturi i iskusstv [Herald of Chelyabinsk State Academy of Culture and Arts]. - 2013. - № 3 (15). - P. 80-84.
2. Gushul, Yu. V. Socio-cultural projection of the new library in the information society / Yu. V. Gushul // Vestnik Chelyabinskoy gosudarstvennoy akademii kulturi i iskusstv [Herald of Chelyabinsk State Academy of Culture and Arts]. - 2014. - № 1 (37). - P. 175-177.
3. Determinism and deontology in informational and library-bibliographic spheres: practical workers joined the discussion of the article by A. V. Sokolov / review Yu. V. Gushul // Vestnik Chelyabinskoy gosudarstvennoy akademii kulturi i iskusstv [Herald of Chelyabinsk State Academy of Culture and Arts]. - 2009. - № 4 (20). - P. 24-26.
4. Velobibliotekari - druz'ya shpionov [Cycle librarians - friends of spies] / [Ekaterina Shklyar]: blog. - URL: http://bibliotekarsha.wordpress.com/page/2/.
5. Cycling for libraries / website. - URL: http://www.cyclingforlibraries.org/?page_id=7791.
Review is prepared by Yu. V. Gushul Received 18.09.2014
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