Because of my involvement with the Digital Public Library of America effort, I’ve put a lot of thought into what different realizations of such a huge project might mean for library patrons in San Jose, CA where I work for San Jose Public Library.  It’s really quite clear that the people of San Jose are embracing the shift from physical content to digital content; our eBook usage stats just keep going up and up.  It’s also quite clear that people *love* our library buildings; they are packed every day and our door count just keeps going up and up.  This seems hard to reconcile: if the library’s greatest value proposition is it’s collection of circulating books, yet more and more of our collections are leveraged on an iPad from the comfort of an armchair at home, why are the buildings so busy?

The truth is, people like to *go to the library*.  It’s a community space, where they attend programs, see friends, and feel comfortable.  You don’t need to buy a cup of coffee in order to use the bathroom, and nobody is going to yell at you if you sit around all day and read the magazines.  I watch people chill out with their iPads, reading, browsing, all while sitting in a group of giggling friends.  Public libraries are community spaces that are specifically set aside so that you can make yourself smarter in your leisure time.  That’s really the coolest thing ever; something a community can take pride in. The digital shift hasn’t pushed people away from libraries.  So far the addition of eBooks to our collections has just been a boom in activity.  So, enter the DPLA: a digital library mega-effort with an ambitious goal to make all of our rich cultural heritage available across the web.  How will that change the activities in library spaces in rural Texan towns or neighborhood libraries in San Jose?

I think that the DPLA is a great opportunity for libraries to shift their focus to supporting a different set of activities in our buildings, and public library’s already mild support of these activities is one reason that we haven’t seen people leave our buildings behind for the comfort of their armchair at home.  The activities I speak of are creation activities: the production of new knowledge for personal growth and sometimes even the public good.  The future of public libraries lies in supporting creative endeavors in their local community and empowering the patrons to contribute their creative work back to the community or to the whole world via the internet.  The traditional library is a read-only space, meant for the consumption of knowledge: by providing access to media, we enable patrons to read books, watch movies, or listen to music.  The library in the age of the internet is quite different: texts or books are now just as easy to write or edit as they are to read, movies are just as easy to mash up and edit as they are to watch, and music is just as easy to remix as it is to listen to it.  Of course its ‘just as easy’ if you have access to the tools and skills to do these things.  Herein lies the new role for public libraries: we need to be centers for knowledge production, not just knowledge consumption.  There is no other institution doing this work, and public libraries are best situated to fill the gap.

For this reason, a Digital Public Library of America stands to have great influence on public libraries if it successfully accomplishes this one thing.  It must support user generated content, and give patrons the opportunity to integrate and display their own contributions in the context of ‘trusted’ library content, and it has to make that experience fun and rewarding for the participants.  In addition, if the digital library is to support these kinds of community contributions, it also needs to provide some infrastructure, some means by which the content is digitized or uploaded or displayed.  The “if we build it they will come” digital library will not work, even if it is a successful realization of de-siloing library assets and metadata for exposure on the web (which, btw, is awesome).  The DPLA or any large public digital library effort needs a mechanism for contribution, and serious UX work making that contribution engaging.  I’m also talking about the DPLA creating a task force for proposing real solutions to public library technology budgets, and hiring and training staff who know how to use the technology.

I think the added value of user generated content is best illustrated through an example.  I loved the comment Martin Gomez, director of Los Angeles Public Library, made at the DPLA plenary meeting: “What’s in it for the KIDS?”  Here is one example of what could be in it for the kids.

One of our most popular programs at the San Jose Public Library is the “Battle of the Bands”.  What’s not to love?  It channels the rowdy, creative energy of teenagers in a safe space to express themselves and feel confident as producers of knowledge.  In less nerdy words: we support making them feel like rock stars.  The problem is that as cool as that may be, the library only assists these kids in a few small aspects of the creative process.  We could do much, much more to turn the Battle of the Bands into a rich, lasting learning experience for the participants, and a DPLA could support pieces of that.  Here’s how.

First, to play in a band you need access to instruments, analog or digital.  These are are the tools for knowledge production.  One library in East Palo Alto lends out guitars to patrons.  Or you may be familiar with other libraries, where they lend out power tools or digital cameras.

Next, participants might want to record this event.  Maybe they want to shoot a video, maybe they are just trying to capture audio.  There’s an opportunity to teach audio and video production here.

Finally, the fun part: sharing their creation with their friends, and publishing it for the whole world to see.  Of course great services exist to do that and there’s no point in trying to invent our own version of YouTube, but we don’t necessarily have any tools for those kids to put their newly shot music video into the context of rock n’ roll history via a national digital library that pulls together trusted content from museum, libraries, archives and historical societies around the country.  This is where the interoperability of the DPLA could be a game-changer for recreational learners of all types.  If the Battle of the Bands participants could build collections and connections between trusted sources and their own creative work, they’d be learning by using media.  So if our band were a goth band and they found images and videos of The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees from the 1980s, then drew connections to Edwardian couture and then perhaps some 19th century literature (you can tell I’m going out on a limb for this particular example) they could build their own little collection of these materials.  Then, perhaps they could connect their collection to another person’s steampunk band on the other side of the country, and discover that even though the old-timey steampunk music doesn’t sound like other music they are into, there’s a common love for 19th century literature.

The point is this: once more ground work is established, a Digital Public Library of America could facilitate any of these activities.  The final example describing curation-based learning is the most obvious touchpoint, while the other steps: lending tools like musical instruments or offering a studio environment for audio or video production may require a more indirect form of support, perhaps through architecture or a design pattern like librarylab.org.  Most importantly, I hope this example illustrates the changing nature of library spaces, and their continued relevance in their communities as programs like evolve into core activities: the bread and butter of 21st century library service.

Thanks for reading!  No guarantees this will be an exact transcript of the DLF presentation, I like to make that stuff up on the fly.

In that vein, I am going to present to you a summary of their top ten benefits of tough economic times in reverse order;

10. Refresh Your Organization- This is the opportunity to look at the positions in your organization to see if the needs can be met through making positions more diversified or by changing the roles and services provided by the positions. You should be asking yourself if there is a need for the position, how else it can be filled, what else can be done? How much of the work is really relevant and how much is just filler? Its important to make the positions more fulfilling and satisfying by utilizing the talent that the employees.

9. Developing Staff Skills – Tough times can give libraries the opportunity to learn and grow from each other. Instead of paying for coaches and consultants, you can utilize the knowledge of your staff to train other staff members. Its important to allow staff to cross train other staff in a various roles and positions to give them the opportunity to grow and help people on multiple levels. Allowing staff to work together to teach each other can also help staff work more effective in teams, improve moral, or to work more collaboratively.

8. Make New Friends- In the good times, all these good friends existed out there but we weren’t talking to them. Now, in the hard times, we need to renew these friendships and make new friends. It’s important that you rely on local organizations and that you encourage them to rely on you for the resources that both can share. For example, the library can supply the community space for a food or hunger organization and the organization can provide the program.

7. Finally Write That Grant – Get someone who has an affinity for writing, has attention to detail, and most importantly has an interest in writing a grant. It would be helpful to get someone on your staff to help review state and federal grants so that they get trained (for free) about the grant writing process. You can also utilize volunteers who are looking to keep their work experience solid while they are unemployed to write grants.

6. Say It Better (Improve Communications) – good old fashion face-to-face communication. These times we have gone through have created so much fear and libraries are relearning the importance of communicating effectively to staff. Simple things, like leaving your door open, can help staff change their perception of you.

5. Kill Mission Creep – The most important skill a manager has is to demonstrate confidence with a clear message and knowing what they want. You want staff to get behind your initiatives and know where the library is headed. It’s important to revisit the strategic plan to make sure that all staff is working towards the same goals. Bad things start to happen if the only thing your working towards is keeping the doors open. Figure out what is it you really want to do and do it really well instead of trying to do to many things part way. In order to accomplish this, you should figure out how to say no to things that lie outside of goals of the strategic plan.

4. Enjoy Spring Cleaning (Leaner Facilities) – There is a lot you can do to fix up and change your facility for little to no money. Take this opportunity to clean out and throw away what you don’t need and to create a leaner space. Remember the adage, there is a place for everything and everything in its place and having too much “stuff” around the building leads to less efficiency. Explain the why’s of why a leaner space is a better space. For example, decrease the number of flyers on the desks and teach staff to be better salesman with face-to-face interactions.

3. Weed’em and Reep – Many libraries are weeding significant portions of their non-fiction collections to make room for more computers and chairs or other resources that patrons may need at a higher level. Perform a turnover analysis on all of your collections and anything that is low should be considered for downsizing.

2. Meet New Needs and Create New Users – Its important to have fun and change with the needs of the community to gain a new set of users. If people had an experience that is relevant to their lives, its more likely that they will vote in favor of the library when it comes time to go to the taxpayers for funding. We have created many rules to preclude patrons from using the facilities and we should be starting to change to more welcoming spaces.

1. Adjust Your Attitude – A fish stinks from the head down. Managers and leaders who are up against the challenges of the economic downturn and are negative will not inspire staff to rise above the challenges to solve the problems. By solving the problems from a positive space the manager creates a sense of team and comradely. Even if you’re not in a leadership position its possible to lead through your attitude towards staff and situations.

Nancy Pearl presents “Book Buzz”
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 10:30am – noon
Join Nancy Pearl and assorted friends from the world of publishing as they talk about some of the best upcoming books. Pearl recommends books regularly on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” as well as local public radio stations in Milwaukee, Seattle, and Tulsa. Her books include Book Crush: For Kids and Teens: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Interest and Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason. This session is open to all registered conference attendees.

Nicholas D. Kristof to Keynote PLA Conference Opening Session
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.
For over twenty years, New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Nicholas D. Kristof has been at the forefront of world issues, from his coverage of the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square to his recent reportage of the genocide in Darfur. His recent book (which he co-wrote with wife Sheryl WuDunn) Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide charts the oppression of women in developing countries and serves as a call to action to combat these issues. This session is open to all registered conference attendees.

Thursday’s Adult Author Luncheon to feature Scott Turow
Thursday, March 25, 2010 Noon – 1:45 p.m.
Scott Turow made a huge splash in the book world with his debut novel Presumed Innocent and has continued his streak of acclaimed best-selling books ever since. He has won a number of literary awards, including the Heartland Prize in 2003 for Reversible Errors and Time Magazine’s Best Work of Fiction 1999 for Personal Injuries. His latest novel, Innocent, will be published in Mary 2010. This event requires an additional fee.

Thursday’s Young Adult Author Luncheon to feature Virginia Euwer Wolff
Thursday, March 25, 2010 Noon – 1:45 p.m.
Virginia Euwer Wolff has made an indelible impression on the YA landscape over the past twenty years, all the more notable considering she spent the first half of her career as an English teacher. Her books include the Make Lemonade trilogy, Bat 6, Probably Still Nick Swansen, and The Mozart Season. Each of her books has been named either an ALA Notable Book or ALA Best Book, and she received the National Book Award for True Believer. This event requires an additional fee.

Audio Publisher’s Dinner
Thursday, March 25th, 2010 6 – 8:30 p.m.
Some of the best mystery authors writing today will converge at the Audio Publisher’s Dinner. This year’s speakers include Chelsea Cain, who has gained prominence with her Archie Sheridan and Gretchen Lowell series; Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Milhone mysteries; Tony Award-winning actress Judy Kaye, who voices Kinsey Milhone on the audiobooks; and Marcia Muller, recently named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. This event requires an additional fee.

Friday’s Adult Author Luncheon to feature Luis Urrea
Friday, March 26, 2010 Noon – 1:45 p.m.
Author, poet, and essayist Luis Alberto Urrea was a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist and was recently inducted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame. Powerful and evocative, Urrea’s writing has concentrated largely on the Tijuana border culture and sheds light on a too-often forgotten people. He has written eleven books including The Devil’s Highway, The Hummingbird’s Daughter (based on the life of his great-aunt Teresita, often labeled “The Mexican Joan of Arc”), and, most recently, Into the Beautiful North. This event requires an additional fee.

Children’s Author Luncheon to feature Kadir Nelson
Friday, March 26, 2010 Noon – 1:45 p.m.
Kadir Nelson began his career as an award-winning illustrator of many children’s books, including Thunder Rose and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. His authorial debut, We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, was a New York Times bestseller and won the Sibert Medal among many other awards. He has recently created a book called Change Has Come: An Artist Celebrates Our American Spirit about the historic election of Barack Obama. This event requires an additional fee.

Sarah Vowell to Keynote Closing Session
Saturday, March 27, 2010 11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Sarah Vowell is the author of four bestselling books and has been a contributing editor for NPR’s “This American Life” since 1996. Vowell’s Assassination Vacation is a hilarious and haunting road trip to tourist sites devoted to the murders of presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Her latest book, The Wordy Shipmates, a history of American Puritans, was published in 2008 and she is currently at work on a history of 19th century Hawaii. This session is open to all registered conference attendees.

Offered biennially, the PLA National Conference is the premier event for public libraries, drawing librarians, library support staff, trustees, Friends and library vendors from across the country and around the world. The conference includes nearly 200 top-quality continuing education programs, preconferences and talk tables, plus several social events and networking opportunities and a bustling exhibits hall. PLA 2010, the PLA 13th National Conference, will be held March 23-27 in Portland.

For more information about PLA 2008, visit the National Conference Web site, www.placonference.org. For more information about other PLA events and programs, contact the PLA office at or 800-545-2433, ext. 5PLA, or visit PLA’s Web site at www.pla.org.

When I set out for this cross-country trip, my plan was to visit a bunch of libraries along the way (tag: road trip), admire and promote their unique community-centered practices, and share photos as I go. It has been interesting. I haven’t blogged about even a third of the libraries I’ve dropped by, mostly because of connectivity issues (no interwebs when camping). I can testify now, it is true, American libraries really do differ greatly from town to town, state to state, and region to region. I’ve ranted quite a bit over the past few years about community-centered and user-centered design principles, and it’s funny to look around and see how much of that is really happening concurrently and unconsciously along side the heady, academic talk of such practices.

To the point: I had a great library patron experience in Jackson, Wyoming the other day. Rather than coming in as some kind of outsider, some kind of bloggy library critic, I visited the Teton County Library as a patron with some real questions. My girlfriend and I had backpacked +/- 25 miles in Grand Teton National Park and had encountered everything from easily identifiable columbine and lupine, moose and marmots to quite a few more unusual plants and animals along the trail. As a temporarily unemployed librarian on a limited budget traveling cross-country, it should come as no surprise that I didn’t want to buy every field guide available for every region along the road. After a brief tour around the library, I settled down with a pile of books and sorted out what was what.

I don’t want to ignore innovative practices at Teton County Library in any way with this post. Please look around their well-designed website, browse the area about their solar panels, the green building, and its sustainable operations. Pay mind to the fact that there is an electric car workshop right around the corner, they’ve been doing claymation workshops for summer reading (and that kids are reading a TON of books there). Look at all of that stuff. Myself, I just got caught up in the realization that as a traveler of the USA, public libraries are a piece of infrastructure that is invaluable, not replicated by any other service, and they are truly hyperlocal. They may be nodes or hubs of connectivity, but they retain local identity. There is NO OTHER WAY to get the kind of free local information I got at the Teton County Library. Its important to recognize that and consider it as a core piece of your library’s service delivery.

Just to hammer the point home: as travelers, we were referred to the Teton County Library by a 2 year old “Road Trip USA” travel guide purchased for $1 at the Skokie Public Library bookstore. The Teton County Library is such a valued resource that travel books write about it. Shouldn’t that be something every neighborhood library aspires to?

In Bozeman, Montana now- another great library town. Check back soon!

Probably not.

The building itself is pretty fantastic, as the architect was James W. Hammond of Skidmore Owings & Merrill. It is a vintage 1960 building, and with that come blessings and curses. The original furniture and interior is amazing, but as libraries begin to reconsider their program for the digital age much of it can seem cumbersome and inflexible (that’s modernism for ya). Despite these challenges, Skokie is moving forward with some interesting initiatives. The one I’m most excited about is the Media Lab that the gentlemen I mentioned earlier are running with.

The Media Lab is under construction right now, so I will not show any pictures just yet, but I believe it will be a much smaller, sort of modular version of the media creation extravaganza Chicago Public Library has over at their YouMedia space.  This is an interesting and exciting way of approaching the problem of new media literacy in our networked, participatory culture because the services Skokie Public Library will be providing are small-scale, relatively low-cost, and the whole project looks measurable and replicable from my vantage point.

Here’s a few pics from the library.

Check out the green roof, as seen from the staff lounge.

There’s a movie theater in the library…

There was no way to show this, but in the storytime room, the ceiling was full of little fiberoptic cables making it look like a night sky when the lights were out.

Finally, a nice circulating video game collection.

The Oak Park Main Library is a huge new building: 104,000 square feet and 3 floors.  There are two other branch libraries that I didn’t get to, the Dole Library and the Maze Branch.

The thing that really caught my eye about this library was the art collection and their attention to the furniture in the building.  This should not really come as a surprise, since Oak Park is “home to the world’s largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings and houses, with 25 structures built between 1889 and 1913“.  Also noteworthy is the fact that our old boy Ernest Hemingway came from this town, and the Oak Park Library collects materials about him.  Unrelated decorative arts note: check out the bathroom tiles in Hemingway’s house on Key West.  Beautiful.

My favorite pieces in the Oak Park Library’s art collection were the Chris Ware drawings (1) (2) (3) and best of all the two wonderful pieces of Higgins Art Glass.  As a Mid-Century design geek and collector of cool looking stuff, I’ve always coveted Higgins glass mobiles and I couldn’t believe this lucky library patron just chilling out underneath one.  Jealous.

Also, all art and greenroof projects aside, it should be clear that there’s some excpetional librarianship going on around here, as the Genre-X programs that I’ve written about before come out of this place.

Stick with the PLA Blog, I visited another great library in the Chicago area today and you’ll be able to read about it soon.

The ALA 2009 Annual Conference begins tomorrow in this fine city. It is going to be a blast, and we’ve got a whole crew of bloggers bringing you the action here on the PLA Blog, so pay attention!

But…

Before I get all caught up in conference mayhem tomorrow, I’d like to share a few pictures from another wonderful library I visited today as part of the cross-country road trip. After a long hike in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, we headed north toward Chicago and along the way we stopped at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.  Ohio libraries are in a bind; it has been in the news recently that Governor Strickland wants to reduce library funding by as much as 50%.  Read more. It only took a few minutes walking around this magnificent urban library to see what a bad idea those budget cuts would be.

After identifying myself as a blogger for PLA, the PR folks from this public library were kind enough to lead me around and give me a small tour of the facility. Of course the tour had to be brief, our dog was patiently waiting outside.  Have a look at a few photos from the library.

Check out the entrance with the book fountain. Classic.  I must admit I found it a little funny- I’m pretty sure the library prefers if you don’t pour water all over their books

I love this drive up window. Because I’m in the middle of a road trip myself, I’m finding drive-through customer interactions particularly interesting. Serving a drive-through patron is totally different from a reference or circulation desk transaction. How can you do it best at your library?

The Teen Spot is new, bright, and lively and the librarians were excited to talk about their space, materials, and programs.

I think these lockers in the Teen Spot are a good idea.  Teens gotta put their stuff somewhere, right?

This is just one view of the great looking space.

The Tech Loft must offer 100 computers terminals (I didn’t count), all of which were occupied by 1 or more people. It was absolutely slammed with people and it may have been the busiest place in the building. What does that say about the future direction of library services?

Thanks again to the kind folks at the library in Cincinnati! Stay strong saveohiolibraries advocates! Readers, look forward to more stories from Chicago!

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I think this is a pretty interesting situation. As I understand it, the original Fort Mill Library was in a building downtown. Roughly 10 years ago, when Baxter Village was built, the developer donated the land to the county so that they could build a new library here. The building is new and beautiful, used by the residents of this rather interesting suburban experiment as well as folks who live in neighboring areas. I have to imagine that the older building in downtown Fort Mill (a pretty cute little town) had quite a few challenges associated with its age and architecture.

I wonder if any other readers can point to specific instances of cooperation between real estate developers and public library systems similar to this situation? This seems like an interesting merger of public and private interests for the benefit of everyone involved. I know ideas like this were floating around at Brooklyn Public Library, but never came to fruition. Anybody else?

Enjoy some pics of this bright, clean library. Note the rental book section- for $2 you can get the hot items immediately, rather than wait in line. How do you feel about that arrangement?

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The main library in Roanoke was really great, but I was really frustrated by a bad policy: “no photos unless approved by the director”.  Because of this, I can’t show you the cool plastic hoods hanging over the tables in the teen room that appeared to direct sound so that a group could listen to whatever music they wanted without bothering everyone else.  I also can’t show you the Virginia Room, a great local history and genealogy collection located in one wing of the library.  I would have asked for the director’s permission, but she was in a meeting (as a director often is) and nobody else there was authorized to allow me to take photographs.  Can anyone offer me a good reason why picture-taking requires permission from the highest level?  This is not unique to the Roanoke Library.  Here’s a few pictures from the outside.

update: thanks @justnathan for the link to Roanoke Libraries on Flickr!