Subject/Object

Below is an edited version of a recent short presentation I gave, and an updated statement of my professional vision and philosophy.

I think that the profession’s adoption of the word information back hearkens to a time when academic libraries were managed gateways, and technology was a way to deliver this “stuff” called “information” as efficiently as possible. And, unfortunately, the notion that the library is in the information business is the source of the problems facing academic libraries today. Or at least the source under our direct control.

Instead of teaching, supporting learning, and fostering discovery, the old academic library focused simply on getting information into the hands of its users. Instead of creating a balance between physical space and virtual space, the old library saw technology as a license to focus on resources and not people. And instead of making connections between itself and the wider community, the library relied on the strength of its information to bring people through the doors.

Balancing our virtual and physical spaces

You might be surprised that I did not mention the Internet and digital technology itself as one of challenges. This is not because I don’t have a concern, but because I think all of us are pressing to innovate in this direction. And too often the library focuses on technology as a catch all solution to our problems. But what you get from talking to our newest students is that they don’t make the same distinctions we do. The Internet for them is not something world changing–it is their world. Apart from the ease of getting items while in their fuzzy pajamas, they don’t see the same revolutionary gulf between the physical and digital as we do. For them it is just space. Space for work, space for discovery, space for collaboration.

Studies like the wonderfully innovative ethnographic study of the University of Rochester library and our own experience will show the continued importance of library as place. In fact, students are packing every corner of our physical space, even as we cede the space once taken up by bulky encyclopedias. A supervisor of mine, giving me a tour of her newly renovated library, described how they had to hire student bouncers—like at some bar or a club—counting people in and out on one of those hand devices, because the building often reached capacity according to the fire codes. The day they opened, she told me, students were taking chairs right out of the hands of the staff unloading them. Despite the all hysteria, students are coming here. It is our job to make sure that all the spaces we create—both the physical and the virtual– are welcoming ones: enriching environments inspiring creativity and collaboration.

Balancing our teaching

And, because we’ve got them right where we want them, we have to make our environments of one academic excellence. For me, on top of all of the positive experiences I had in during my undergraduate degree, and all the insights I gained from inspirational classes, the true place of my learning was the library. The library is the place where students ultimately become active, independent, and lifelong learners. It is here where students are encouraged to be critical through the simple act of selecting one item over another item. Anyway… that’s the goal.

Our library instruction therefore has to go beyond the teaching of basic information and technology skills. We cannot just teach students how to search. We need to forge connections with departments and show each student how her discipline speaks and writes, how knowledge is created and transmitted, and what it means to be thoughtful and critical when completing research in that area. This falls under the broadest definition of information literacy. In the library we do not just teach subject knowledge, but teach students how to empower their own learning. That is, beyond technology, information literacy is learning how to learn.

Balancing the place of the library in the university

We cannot out innovate Google. We don’t have the money, and we don’t have the experts. And all of the superior resources in the world will not stand up to the growing control the corporate world is going to have over this stuff called information. So we cannot be about information. Okay, I’ll give in, we cannot just be about information.

The solution to this final challenge is really the solution to all three. It should be our job to use outreach, marketing, and advocacy to remind everyone in our community what I think they already know. Cicero called the library the soul of a house. When I call the library the heart of the university, it is not only because if its central location. The library supplies the lifeblood which sustains the university: ideas. As we make our all of our spaces ones which are student-centered, we should at the same time breaking down our walls to spread this message. We should be going to every corner of the campus, and to the places online where our students works and play, to promote the library as the place where ideas happen. As the place where the path of your life will be changed by the next book you pick up, the next digital exhibit you experience, or research discovery you make.

To be competitive in a world where it hits us from every direction, success is not just serving information then getting out of the way. We have to reach out to our community to impress upon that our business of ideas and knowledge and teaching and learning. Because the library has something that Google will never have: heart.