Last One Out, Turn Off The Lights. Is This The Future of American and Canadian Libraries?

Citation

Hallam, G. (2006), "Last One Out, Turn Off The Lights. Is This The Future of American and Canadian Libraries?", Library Management, Vol. 27 No. 9, pp. 659-662. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435120610715590

The title of this book is catchy – and provocative – Last One Out, Turn Off The Lights. The title effectively evokes the desired response from potential readers who have heard all too often the prophets of doom and gloom declare that the library as we know it has no future in the era of digital information. How can we compete in a Google‐driven world? While library and information professionals have become increasingly aware of the challenges facing them through the competition of ubiquitous access to information, many have seen this as the opportunity to rise to the challenges, by being competitive and by demonstrating the relevancy of libraries in the twenty‐first century. “If we are going to compete, if we are going be relevant… then we are going to have to change” (p. x).

This focus of this book is on change in libraries, i.e. the need to change. It is about “changing the lightbulb”, rather than about “flipping the switch”. It is about identifying the issues that libraries in all reality do have to contend with and offers insights into some creative and innovative strategies that can help libraries and librarians achieve relevancy in a rapidly changing world. Principally, however, it poses lots of questions, without too many answers.

In preparing the book, the editors, Susan E. Cleyle and Louise M. McGillis, invited a number of contributors to offer their perspectives on the future role of libraries and librarians in North America. These contributors were asked to think outside the box, to speculate on ways in which libraries could “preserve what is good, while at the same time move forward and do things in very different ways” (p. xv). The contributors come from different areas of practice in the library and information world: reference librarians, executive directors of professional associations, national librarians, university librarians, library educators, public library directors, library interns and teacher librarians. This melange of perspectives influences the tone of the book: each chapter is a personal musing on the issues, resulting in an informal narrative style.

As they are drawn from both Canada and the USA, the various contexts for the authors, and the examples they present, are inevitably localised. Nevertheless, readers outside of North America can still appreciate the issues that are raised and consider the opportunities for innovative practice in their own jurisdictions. Readers should note, of course, that as the book was published in February 2005, the chapters would have been written more than two years ago. The examples presented are therefore not necessarily cutting edge, and at times even seem rather dated, but the main tenet of the book is to encourage readers to embrace the knowledge that the landscape is changing and that librarians really do need to act, and to act now, to meet the needs of the new generation of users.

The book is divided into five parts, which represent the various dimensions of professional practice – physical and virtual, individual and collegiate: the tensions between libraries and the internet; library as place; the implications of the delivery of full‐text information to the desktop; the issue of library education and career long learning; and the future of library associations. It is the type of book that the reader can dip into, rather than read from cover to cover – but the lack of an index can be frustrating, as it is difficult to locate topics of interest read on an earlier occasion. Perhaps highlighters and post‐it notes offer a solution for the more serious reader.

Part 1 is entitled “The tug of war between libraries and the web: who will end up in the dirt?” Admittedly, here the reader is sensitive to the passage of time: technology has already moved a long way in terms of mobile phone services and wireless access to the internet, but the emphasis is firmly on the concept of virtual reference services “anywhere, anytime”. However, virtual reference is presented as just one possible service offering; technology should be viewed as tool that can support the development of new services, not to replace the traditional ones. Blogging is also discussed as an initiative for libraries: while in the period since publication blogs have become commonplace on the web, the key point for readers to consider is the potential for libraries to serve their users “by creating dynamic, interactive, virtual spaces that encourage participation, stimulate knowledge exchange and create communities of learning” (p. 42).

While the title of Part 2 invites the reader to, “Wake up and smell the coffee: how do we reinvent the library as place”, the individual chapters are rather disappointing. There are case studies on one university library, one public library and one joint‐use facility linking public and school libraries. Each chapter is filled with considerable detail about the organisation itself and discusses some of the changes implemented in these libraries that, at the simplest level, probably reflect the priorities of the majority of libraries today: to play a central role within the communities they serve and to understand the impact of physical space on how users interact with the resources they use. Nevertheless, the building itself cannot determine the success of the library. The authors underscore the need to attract and retain professional staff who want to explore new ideas and service philosophies (p. 60), a theme picked up in the chapters in Part 4.

Part 3 focuses on the delivery of full‐text resources to the desktop, arguably one of the developments that had the most impact on library users. The authors examine the interplay between desktop delivery and user behaviour, technological convergence, trends in academic publishing and copyright, as well as some of the barriers to information access that are embedded in the library systems themselves: the silos of diverse information sources, the array of user interfaces and the complexity of reaching full text documents. Existing library standards and protocols, and the practices of bibliographic description through MARC and AACR2, urgently need to be addressed, emulating the strategies of Google and Amazon to create easy‐to‐use, intuitive systems: “… whether we like it or not, it is both achievable and imperative that we use the very instrument that led our users away from us to win them back – and in so doing serve their needs better than we ever have before” (p. 95). To be able to achieve this, however, requires library and information professionals who will be “adept at creating an intellectual landscape densely populated with electronic information sources and rich with a variety of services tailored to shifting needs” (p. 122). This challenges the reader to consider the issues surrounding library education.

Part 4, entitled “From librarian to cybrarian: can certification redefine us?” is arguably more North America‐centric than other sections of the book, as it examines the immediate context of the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) programs accredited by the American Library Association (ALA) (the ALA accredits programs in both the USA and Canada) and the debate revolving about the merits of certification of library and information professionals. While accreditation serves to validate a particular course of study, certification refers to the formal evaluation by an agency of the knowledge and skills acquired by an individual practitioner. The international reader can, however, move beyond the immediate discussion about the possible models and processes of certification, to explore the issues central to initial professional education and continuing education. The greatest challenge facing the profession at large is the need to determine the kind of education and training needed by library and information professionals to manage the current service priorities as well as to be responsive to the dynamic changes in our field. Should continuing education be viewed as voluntary or compulsory for practitioners? Integral to the discussion on certification as a strategy to ensure better quality practitioners are the potential benefits of professional recognition, enhanced status, better salaries and improved image. Ultimately, the future of the libraries will depend on the abilities of the staff “to navigate ongoing change effectively, allowing libraries to continue to forge paths of innovative practices” (p. 137).

The role of the library association features strongly in the discussion on certification. The book continues in Part 5 with a discussion of the actual challenges facing professional associations: “Mixing the old with the new: how do library associations survive?” Different perspectives are presented, from the analytical business orientation of executive directors of major associations, to the “what's in it for me?” view of a recent graduate. Generational issues are central to the future of library associations, resulting from the general decline of interest amongst the younger generations in becoming involved in civic, religious and professional organisations. Even more starkly than the earlier parts, Part 5 is full of questions that library and information professionals should be asking themselves, both individually and collaboratively.

This book is indeed full of questions, and while some aspects of the book may limited by time and place, the questions are universal for all library and information professionals at the beginning of the twenty‐first century. These questions invite the readers to consider their own views, to reflect on the values that underpin their practice and to create their own scenarios for their own professional future. Library professionals are specifically encouraged to move away from their traditional, introspective view of the world, to consider what people think and need on the outside: to allow both current and prospective users to be the driving force. The book concludes with the Darwinian translation of “Last one out, turn off the lights”: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”[1].