Portland Press Herald:
Last year children’s librarian Debby Atwell put a new set of encyclopedias on the shelf at Thomaston Public Library.
A year later, it has yet to be touched.
“I have never seen an encyclopedia lifted from the stacks,” Atwell said.
Librarians across the state report the millennials, the generation born roughly between 1980 and 2000, are not using libraries the way past generations did.
Sounds like a instruction opportunity to me.
The librarian could teach the children about authority, she could demonstrate tried and true methods of research that will remain around long after the signal to noise ratio of the interent has made it nothing more than a broadcast medium for perverts and lunatics.
She could teach children how to write substantive works rather than simply photocopying and cutting and pasting.
I’ve taken students to our encyclopedia and shown them how to use the World Book for a general overview of a topic and the E.Brit. for a more in depth coverage. I’ve even had students remark how helpful the index volumes of the E.B were because “I never thought of this related stuff.”
Librarians do not need to be “more wildly out of the box,” students need to learn how to access reliable, accurate, authoratative information. If they are using google they will fail in life, just like they should fail in school (except the teachers I knew that came into my library were >75% complete dolts.)
Librarians need to be able to communicate to students new ways of accessing authoratative information, and no it is not wikipedia, although it my be online. There is still a need for print encyclopedia, it is unfortunate these librarians don’t fully utilize the tools they are given.
Reference is more than encyclopedias
Reference is so much more than generalist encyclopedias, and libraries are much more than reference. Truthfully, our encyclopedias didn’t get much use. Our TCLCs and NCLCs did. Our Contemporary Black Biographies did. Specific dictionaries and encyclopedias… arts, biographical dictionaries are wildly popular.
I think it’s more about making good choices about what’s in reference. I tended to go lighter on the general stuff, and do more “general” specific stuff… I didn’t rely on World Book to tell about our state, I went to state directories, political almanacs, etc. The internet can’t hold a candle to a well-chosen reference collection… It’s harder to sort through, assimilate, and cite. And of course, there are pitfalls. Brings me back to the young man who did a report on George Washington, the first president and got genuinely confused when he read about George Washington, who died in 1985 after attending his son’s graduation barbeque. It’s hard for many people to sort of information online.
Are libraries going away? Of course staying relevant is important. Reinventing the profession is good. Reinventing the library is good.
Lately, I’m all about reinvention.
Easier access…
We all know that libraries provide information that is of high quality and authority, I don’t think anyone disputes that. But access to the information in libraries is largely still “traditional” and this traditional method of access is “perceived” to be more difficult, cumbersome, and uninteresting to many many young people. It doesn’t matter what librarians think! They simply prefer Google’s method of searching to libraries’ method of searching, at this point in time! They don’t necessarily find the information on Google more interesting! It’s that simple. Young people don’t need much convincing. Don’t libraries get that? It’s like saying there is the most beautiful paradise in a place so remote and inaccessible that it takes 500 days to get there and you are subjected to mosquitoes carrying malaria and poisonous snakes and tropical heat. It doesn’t matter how beautiful this paradise is when it is torturous to get there. Not many people will go there if access to it is so difficult. Many would gladly go there if access was easy. So my point is if libraries want people to use libraries more then make the method of access easier and more appealing.