“Is that a library book? I haven’t seen one of those in years!”
A stranger said this to me recently, with a look of pure incredulity. The sight of a library book in the modern world may be a rare thing, it’s true. For those of us with a Kindle, an iPad or even just a Barnes & Noble gift card, there is not a huge necessity for library books.
However, as Jay Leno and I are quickly finding out, there is more to a library than its identifying book stacks.
A couple weeks ago in his opening monologue, Leno said, “People here in Los Angeles are upset about the mayor’s proposed plan to cut the budget of libraries. This could affect as many as nine people.”
This joke, aside from any comedic value it may or may not have, was ill-informed. City librarian MartÃn Gómez was quick to correct Leno with a letter. He wrote, “Despite what you may think, these cuts are no laughing matter to the 17 million people who use the city’s libraries each year.”
I took a trip to the Central Library downtown recently, and I can testify to that ““ the library was a hustling and bustling place on a Friday afternoon. They now let you check out audiobooks and e-books on your iPod or Kindle, they have job search help and of course wireless Internet.
It got me wondering about the future of libraries, so I turned to Christine Borgman, UCLA professor and presidential chair of the information studies department, to find out what’s going on with libraries.
“It’s about access to the information, not so much about the artifact,” Borgman said.
The fact that the library’s uses are much more vast than we give it credit for may explain why the department of library and information studies is such a broadening field. Borgman sees more students pursuing the degree not only from the humanities but also from the sciences, social sciences and the arts. And their jobs upon graduating are more varied, too.
“Our graduates will work in academic libraries as you know them, but they’ll also work in historical archives, they’ll go to Hollywood and do digital asset management for the movies, and they’ll build information systems in industry or government.”
Unlike other industries that find themselves struggling to adapt to the digital age, it seems that libraries have already evolved organically, far beyond their original function as a book-lending service. Only a lot of people, Leno for one, haven’t noticed. Because the library is no longer just a physical space but a virtual one as well, it’s easy to overlook the library’s infiltration of modern life.
“When faculty or students say, “˜I never go to the library anymore, I get it all online,’ what they’re not recognizing is that the library has come to them,” Borgman said.
So the truth is, library budget cuts would affect a whole lot more than nine people, especially with the current economy.
“Demand for our libraries’ services is only going up. In reality, it would be a great time to invest in our libraries, what with all the things they can provide for the betterment of Los Angeles’ citizens, free of charge,” Borgman said.
After talking with Borgman, I recalled the day in middle school when my school librarian gave a presentation on the Dewey Decimal System. The class would laugh later about how seriously the librarian took it, as she went through the accompanying PowerPoint. It sounded, well, antiquated. How far we’ve come.
E-mail Bastien at jbastien@media.ucla.edu.