If God actually loved me, I’d be in Boston today attending a workshop on libraries and technology. However, I’m feeling unloved and stuck in my bare-walled, Cape Cod office. Still, I wanted to share my thoughts.
The Media Center
I attended undergraduate school from 1989 – 1994. Back then, the campus library at Marywood University was called the “Media Center.” In fact, the school was very insistent that everyone from faculty to students call it the Media Center, and not “library.” I thought it was silly.
Today, I know they were ahead of their time.
I entered college almost 20 years ago (holy cow!). It was in the Media Center that I first used a computer for something other than idle poking around and first used email (all command line back then!). In fact, Marywood’s Media Cener was able to check the status of books at another local university electronically, and even place reservations. Remember, this was 1989. I was blown away that experience.
Several of my instructors would only communicate with us via email or bulletin boards. The IS department on the 3rd floor became my home-away-from-home, and by the time I graduated I was prolific with computers, the newborn internet and all it had to offer.
All thanks to the Media Center. It was an exciting and fun place to be. There were great conversations with interesting people, cool technology to use freely and so on.
The emphasis was on communication. Both one-way (books, newspapers, etc.) and two-way (people, in person and online). Ideas were exchanged enthusiastically. I loved going to the Media Center, as it was on the forefront of technology.
Somehow, my experience with public libraries has been quite different.
The Public Library
As a child, my mother would walk with us to the library regularly. I loved selecting a book to take home, having my own library card and so on. I also understood that the library was a serious place, where children had to be quiet and polite. We were to pick a book, check out at the desk and walk home.
In jr. high we learned to use a card catalog, the Dewey Decimal System and how to locate a book. Again, use of the library was “…a privilege” and not the place for fooling around. In other words, the sense of excitement I experienced at The Media Center was not there.
A Communication Hub
Today, our public libraries can create that same sense of exitement among their patrons (especially young people). My local library is starting to take some tentative steps in that direction. They’ve hosted educational programs on Flickr, MySpace and Blogger. They’ve got a teen blog and a nice (if not small) room for teens with two brand-new iMacs. They host teen movie and game nights.
That’s great, but we can think even bigger. The Media Center was a communication hub for the university. In the same way, a public library can become a communication hub for its community.
Video conferences with professionals in Hong Kong could be as commonplace as checking out a copy of The Old Man And The Sea. Community calendars that anyone can subscribe to with their home computers. Live blogging local literary events, book signings or special happenings at the local museum. Just off the top of my head.
I’ve even written an article about how independent web workers like myself can get a day’s work done (for free!) at the library. It’s a great place to work, and I think libraries would benefit from advertising this fact to freelancers and independents.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Inc., calls the Mac a “digital hub” which brings together a person’s photos, music, stories, etc. I see the library as doing the same for the people it serves — a community’s “Communication Hub.”
