How to Build a Library

An interesting photo essay in the online magazine Slate explores the question of how to build a public library in the age of Google, Wikipedia, and Kindle. The grand old reading rooms and stacks of past civic monuments are giving way to a new library-as-urban-hangout concept, as evidenced by Seattle's Starbucks-meets-mega-bookstore central library and Salt Lake City's shop-lined education mall.

What will future libraries look like? The Extinction Timeline at http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2007/10/extinction_time.html already predicts the death of traditional libraries as we know them by 2019 A.D.

You can read the "How to Build a Library" article at http://www.slate.com/id/2184927/slideshow/2184934/.

Comments

[Happy Dae]

Slate's article is good. The navigation between passages/images is awkward and detracts a bit. I suggest his projections are somewhat correct, but a wee bit premature. It will happen, I think, but not as soon as outlined there.

It sounds as though we can do full research on private computers and that mega-bookstore or education-malls will exist to lend a social aspect to it. I've been in libraries with only 1 librarian all the way up to the Library of Congress and my observations indicate researchers don't go to libraries to socialize. Conferences, cruises and genealogical societies provide that feature.

Yes, we can digitize original source documents and published compilations for access via the Internet. Still, it is nice to have an Archivist or Librarian to ask for assistance or for new ideas and resources.

Long live the Library!

Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com

[Janice M. Healy]

I am with Happy Dae on long live the library & librarians. Computers are great but one just can't get comfortable in an easy chair with a computer like one can with a book. I go to a library to research not socialize. Star Bucks for a quick snack at noon is ok, but not needed, a sandwich is always easy to bring. Books can be faster to find than web sites, and far easier to navigate through than most web sites. Also a book doesn't just disappear in a wink of an eye or the fumble of a finger. Books are easy to photo copy your notes from where as a lot of web sites are now set up so that you can not print off what you want to put in your files for reference to document your work at a later date. Not to mention they don't always document where they got their information so it is really pretty useless. Undocumented sources are just gossip.

Maybe what you found doesn't seem to fit at this time. Copy it any way and put it in a file and later you will find it is that needed piece of the puzzle. Where on a web site that won't let you print out stuff you usually will not take the time to write it off. I am sure every one has found this to be the case. Have you ever tried to find a web site that you were in just last week and it is gone not to be found anywhere no mater how you plug in the URAL? Yes, you are saying this happens with books but with a book you can go to the librarian and ask for it, they may know what has become of it. If it is truly gone there is always interlibrary loan or a used book search on line to locate a copy of the book. A good place to start a book search is: http://www.bookfinder.com

Also Librarians and their aids are wonderful sources for finding things at a particular library you are at that you would never know about. No one knows a collection better than the folks working with it every day. In traveling the first thing I have learned to ask is what might you have that tells about the folks that lived in this area in the 1630's or what ever time period or locality I happen to be digging for information on. You would be surprised at some of the gems one can find this way.

So yes long live the library with real books and a librarian or two to go with the books.

Janice M. Healy

[Mary Beth Frederick]

If anyone needs "hard" data about the value of libraries, the Friends of the San Francisco Library published a report at the end of January. It shows that, for every dollar spent on libraries, the return to the community is $3.34 (and perhaps higher)-- see link to press release below. A number of years ago, SF voters passed a bond issue for building a new main library and for the renovation of neighborhood libraries. Recently the 10-year-old Main underwent a reconfiguration, which moved fiction books from the third floor to the main floor and pushed the computers to the outer edges where they belong. Both sections are in full use every time I go there. Although I spend much of my day researching the family tree on the Internet, I also have shelves of genealogy- and history-related books whose contents are invaluable but will realistically never be as easily and completely accessible online.

http://www.friendsandfoundation.org/press_release.cfm?id=41

[Rod Nordberg]

Next month we're heading from MN to the Allen County/Fort Wayne, IN genealogy library to again meet at least a dozen of our Southern California friends - we'll socialize (and spend money there that would not have been spent via computer) AFTER 10 hours of daily research. It's nice that some taxpayers, through their government, recognize libraries as an investment, enough to subsidize them and presumably see a return on their investment.

[JINNY COLLINS]

The best memory I have of visiting libraries where my family one lived was in Terre Haute, Indiana. I stopped in, looked around, ran some reels of censuses, land records, etc. and got what I thought to be ALL that was available there. When I was ready to leave, I walked up to the central librarian station and said, "I've enjoyed visiting and think I found all there is on my Barbee ancestors. It's been a pleasure being here." She said, "Oh, that's so strange! We have many boxes in the basement that were recently donated to us by a local genealogist, Rula Barbee. Would you like to see those?" I about fainted! "WOULD I? - You bet!" Without boring you with the minute details, there, in nicely written script was just about everything I needed to complete my Barbee line back to ANDREW BARBEE, 1670-1699 and his wife Sarah Mason. We stayed an extra four days in Terre Haute! Don't EVER leave a library without asking what they might have that ISN'T catalogued as yet!

[Lyn]

I think the below anecdote says a lot about todays world and kids and libraries. (

From the 29 Feb 2008 San Diego Union-Tribune -

As the county opened its new branch library in Encinitas last Saturday,
one visitor overheard a child excitedly say to his mother as they
entered: "This place is great! It's like the Internet - but it's real!"