Last Thursday I attended the day-long SENYLRC symposium: “Information Commons 2.0- Lessons Learned and Moving Forward” at the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, NY.  Here’s a link to the pdf of the program.  Here’s the wiki.

I went to this conference with Brooklyn Public Library colleagues Richard Reyes-Gavilan (Central Library Director) and Jesse Montero (Web Applications/IT).  Richard, Jesse and I visited Hyde Park that day to snoop around the academic library world a little bit in order to get a taste for what has and hasn’t worked for Information Commons projects in academic library settings.  A short time ago, Brooklyn Public Library was awarded a $100,000 dollar grant from the Leon Levy Foundation to work with Pfeiffer Architects on a plan for a bold transformation of the “Popular Library” space in our Central Library. Our vision for BPL’s Information Commons is to create an area that encourages prolonged individual and small-group research, reading and studying, quiet socializing and larger group workshops.  So, right in the middle of the first floor of the flagship library, librarians would promote basic media, technology, and information literacy as well as assist with advanced research instruction.   Recreating and rethinking a huge chunk of our service model really is an enormous and challenging step forward in an astounding, classic, art deco, 1941 library building.  There’s really no simpler way to say it: this is an awesome project.

I (and I think I can safely say we) learned a thing or two from  Dr. Russell Bailey‘s (Library Director, Providence College) presentation in particular, but as public librarians I think we all were reminded of how different the scope of our work is from that of academic librarians.  At the public library, we serve the informational needs of EVERYONE who walks in the door, with an emphasis on recreational and self-initiated learning.  An academic library serves a specific student/faculty body.  The students and faculty are a closed, captive market with research needs that fit the scope of the schools curriculum.  At the public library, the scope of the curriculum is whatever any patron happens to bring to the information desk that day.  That said, after a day of viewing images of beautiful academic information commons spaces, all I could think was that when we put one of these in our library, I want it to be 200%, maybe 250% more FUN than anything I was seeing.

BUT-

Before I go off the deep end with funfunfun, I want to note that at this point ‘gaming’ and ‘gaming literacy’ have largely been accepted as a norm in the public library setting (yay!).  While I support the idea that learning to navigate 2-D or 3-D information interfaces like those found in video games is a crucial component of  new media literacy, I think its important for public libraries to make distinctions between *RECREATION!!!!* and “recreational learning”.  I’m imagining the information commons in a public library as a place where we strike a comfortable balance between *RECREATION!!!!* and recreational learning.  In other words, think more along the lines of a space where you’d learn to share your resume on LinkedIn, hear a presentation about l33t, dapple in graphic design, or learn to use a database- it is not like Fun Spot or Barcade (both of which are awesome, just in a different way).

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^ Wyndcliffe, an abandoned 1856 Hudson River Valley mansion just miles up the street from the conference. Read more about it here.
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Just today the House Appropriations Committee released its summary of the $825 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill of 2009. Mentioned is its intention to “put people to work building 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries to help our kids compete with any worker in the world.”

Spurring economic recovery and long-term competitiveness through libraries is not a new concept. During the Great Depression, FDR’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) helped libraries in countless ways. New libraries were constructed in 48 states – Rochester’s Rundel Memorial Library (below) is just one example. The program also employed some 38,000 library support staff, which more than doubled the number of library workers at the time.



Just as notable was the expansion of public library service to previously unreached areas. Some 5,800 bookmobiles were put to use bringing books to those that could bring themselves to libraries. Even more iconic were the packhorse librarians, who delivered books to remote, roadless, and largely illiterate areas of Appalachia and the Ohio Valley. Prior to the Great Depression, over a third of America had no reasonable access to library service. The WPA helped narrow that gap. All in all, some $100,000,000 had been dispensed to libraries.

The WPA’s effects can still be felt today. In addition to WPA libraries that still stand, the WPA helped enrich and beautify libraries with murals, artwork and books by Federal Writers Program authors like Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Saul Bellow. The WPA’s Historical Records Survey undertook massive indexing and cataloging projects that serve libraries, archives and their researchers to this day. Most importantly, books and literacy services were spread to regions of the country that needed them most.

The WPA helped expand the reach and role of the American public library during a time when it might have otherwise been snuffed out. Its legacy benefits Americans to this day. Let’s hope that President-Elect Obama and Congress have the wisdom to make libraries an important part of both our short-term economic recovery and long-term economic viability.