Articles for 11 Mar

Leigh
The introduction to this piece was interesting in that it seemed surprising that the ALA finally seemed ready to tackle a problem outside of its own organization. Many of the articles we have read seem to expose the ALA as a body that was slow to react to problems facing the library – like the race issue. Since it was written in 1950, obviously the ALA hadn’t made a complete turnaround with the Public Library Inquiry as the race issue would have come along later, as in the Ruth Brown book for next week. While the inquiry was more related to internal workings than external issues, a step in the right direction is step one. Being detached from the public library, therefore, would make it more objective and being a social science research center, the results would be harder to ignore. In the prose and setup of the article, there is definitely a noted difference in their approach opposed to many of the articles we have read from an internal library perspective. The Public Library Inquiry aims to evaluate the library’s success in terms of its own goals as well as their aptness within the framework of American social and cultural institutions. The author proposes increased funding and bureaucratic organization to better run the library in the coming decade.

Results form the inquiry exposed some of the problems in the library hinted at in other articles, particularly the tradition of the library and hesitance to move away from it. Implementation of technology and having a more liberal library collection were two examples of these. Despite Lutie Stearns’ work with the traveling library in Wisconsin, the Inquiry found that many places were too small or too poor to have a public library or access to one, for which increased funding is obviously a first step. The concept of pooling facilities touched on the same premise behind the implementation of branch library systems within the Main library, increasing resources to more people. While funding was needed to be able to improve library systems, librarians and moreover administrators needed to dedicate them to the steps outlined in the Public Library Inquiry. While problems remain today, great improvement in the efficiency department has been made since the 1950’s.

Nevertheless, based on the historical contexts we have studied – particularly with immigrants on the East Coast – the fact that library services “would provide people of all ages in all places… with abundant opportunity to learn so far as library materials can give that opportunity” seems a bit unlikely. Reading ahead to next week’s book, this obviously did not happen among African Americans. Inequality to access predominated library history, and did not end with the Public Library Inquiry in 1950.

Bush
In this article, Bush proposes potential new paths for peacetime physicists to follow. No longer able to focus on the more war-related elements of physics, they are now encouraged by Bush to use their skills for the maintenance and retention of stored knowledge. Focusing on “the record,” physicists can use technology to find innovative ways of information storage (microfilm), transcription (like the Voder and Vocoder), performing mathematics, and effective means of research. While not all of Bush’s article concentrates directly on the library, his methods and applications definitely transfer over to library processes and ways to manage information and collections, most importantly in how to preserve access to such information. Through Bush, the library and scientific communities merge, lending themselves to one another. Particularly after the war, library attendance increased as more veterans came home and women were no longer working in factories since they were replaced by men. Similarly, physicists working for the war cause obviously no longer were needed to serve that purpose. For this, Bush has the solution.

Storing knowledge was the job of the library, and by using scientist to technology-ify their storage, the library could save on space and efficiency. Compression of all this knowledge would further benefit in cost, which, as we learned in the previous Public Library Inquiry, was a concern in the library since they needed increased funding. However, if this record of knowledge can be so simplified, it might put the librarian in danger. While the librarian is important to guide people to materials, and the technology Bush suggests was far off, technology could make the librarian more obsolete. Today, the librarian still remains important, so obviously technology hasn’t killed the profession completely, but it definitely has caused changes.

Pennavaria
Pennavaria, in her article, discusses the future of the library and books/information in general – not through her own predictions, but rather through writings of fiction and nonfiction by other authors. She focuses mostly on how writers in the past thought information access would be in the future. Fiction writing, she claims, tends to focus more on long-term future and make more concrete predictions about how the library will actually BE in the future. However, fiction does not necessarily attempt to prophesize (is that a word?), instead it expresses the writer’s own fears and beliefs about the potential of their own society – most often for the worst. Pannevaria cites numerous fiction examples where books and information are completely destroyed by an overbearing government, reflecting the value of books for independent thought and existence. For this reason, fiction writing (although some librarians historically claimed otherwise) plays an integral role in the present reality. Many times realities are expressed in a more obscure form through fiction – whether it be due to a real oppression that would not allow them to say it otherwise or because the images that fiction writing allows can be more powerful. Obviously, saying that information may rule over us one day is less effective than reading 1984.
Nonfiction writings, on the other hand, tend to be more conservative in their predictions. She references a few articles relating to technology, but points out that most deal more with the actual role of the library. Librarians themselves were the optimistic futurists, believing the library will remain similar but grow in importance and become a true cultural center. Interestingly, aspects of their predictions – whether literally or in a more figurative sense – can today be found in the modern library. The purpose of nonfiction is usually to be more informative, not to invoke a dramatic reaction in readers like fiction. Not to mention, writing in the realm of nonfiction makes the author more accountable for its accuracy, so the conservative aspect of it seems logical. Still, that doesn’t mean nonfiction writings are not valuable. Charles Cutter in 1883 offered the fantasy that all libraries in the country would be technologically connected and open every day. Through systems like online access allowing 24 hours library access (at least to some degree) and Interlibrary Loan, Cutter’s prediction from over a century ago was actually quite accurate. However, evaluating the accuracy of his statement 60 years ago might prove otherwise.

Sapp
Sapp details thoughts about future librarianship and libraries throughout different decades since the ALA’s establishment in 1876. While obviously concerns change with the times, it is surprising to see how many elements remain the same (concerns over technology, proper organization, supply/demand). Between 1876-1900 Sapp cites concerns over the social agenda for librarians, and between 1900 and 1945 a sense of civic responsibility only increased with the outbreaks of World Wars I and II. The question of getting information to patrons remained a large issue throughout the 20th century as librarians were unsure and in disagreement whether technology should aid the library, and if so, how. After 1946, as academic scholarship changed and increased, the library further questioned how it would meet the demands of its new and ever-growing patronage and the appropriate technology to aid them along. Even today, we see this debate in libraries over the future role of technology as the library enters the digital world as well as keeping its foot in print culture.

Still, I do not believe that print culture has reduced in value. While obviously technology has increased in importance within the library, print culture remains an integral aspect. Especially in the study of history of any subject, many documents and articles are not digitized, and some are in such fragile condition that they cannot be digitized. Others are used less frequently to make it not worth the cost to digitize. Even when a patron has a digital version of something, they often need to print it anyway, bringing the digital world back into the traditional print world. Society today is not ready for a completely digital world, and even if someday it becomes so inclined, that day is far off.