The Library of the Future

The New City Library is constantly evolving to provide the best services and the best customer service possible for all ages, cultures, and perspectives.

Our world is changing at an ever increasing rate and it is up to the library to change with it. An article I read a few years back talked about digital natives and digital immigrants. I, like most of our readers am a digital immigrant. We had to learn most everything from books. When growing up having three channels on a 12” black and white TV was a luxury. Computers were huge contraptions that only big universities and big businesses could afford. My children on the other hand are digital natives. They had their computerized “Speak and Spell” before kinder garden. They learned from Sesame Street in 30 second Snippets on at least a 19” color TV (today they think 56” is too small). They never consider reading the instruction manual to any new phone or gadget. Technology seems to come natural to them.

How does the Library succeed in satisfying the needs of both groups?

Everyone loves books from our youngest to our oldest customers. Our Children’s and Teen area are running out of space with the rich collection we have. We have a good collection of Large Print titles that we hope to grow into a great collection.

The evolution of books in general and audio books in particular is fascinating. First there were audio books on tape. Customers loved them. These evolved into books on CD. Now no new cars come with tape players. What do we do with our collection? Do we continue to purchase titles on a technology that has no future? The New City Library was a head of the times in purchasing what may become an interim technology of audio books prerecorded on MP3 Players. These go by the brand name of “Playaway”. If you haven’t tried on yet, please do. The future seems to be moving to downloadable audio books where customers can download a book to their own MP3 player or iPod through the Library Website. The New City Library offers this service through our regional library, but the collection needs to be enhanced.

In the late 90s Libraries embraced eBooks which could be checked out to your computer or handheld device for reading. The theory was that if we build it and they will come. They (you our customers) didn’t come and the potential was not fully realized. Interesting the items of the highest circulation were cliftnotes, computer books and titles that appealed to teens.

Today libraries are faced with two competing forms of eBook technology; the Amazon “Kindle” and the Sony “Reader Digital Book” Should libraries purchase readers and check them out to customers? Should libraries provide downloadable books to customers for circulation? Unless I were really rich or traveling constantly on airplanes the investment of 2 to 3 hundred dollars just for the reader doesn’t make sense, but this technology will continue to evolve and become more affordable. New color readers, no bigger than, and as flexible as, a paper tablet will soon be available. You can be sure this library will be watching developments.

What is true of books is true of all the formats of materials provided by the library. The change is afoot with films and think how sound recordings have progressed from wax recordings, to 78s to LPs to eight tracks to cassettes and today’s audio CDs. Downloadable music is now quickly becoming the dominate format. The library of today and tomorrow needs to always be looking ahead and providing what is next.

Last week when the New City Library was performing some spring house cleaning we dispensed with our Book Review Digest. It brought back memories of our High School librarian teaching us the complex indexing scheme of monthly indexes, annual indexes and cumulative indexes. The identical material is now available online the only difference is when was the last time teens need to be taught how to do an online search.

Above our commitment to customer service, the New City Library is also committed to evolving with the publishing and media production world. You can share your thoughts on this matter by commenting on this blog