Role
of Libraries and Information in
Sustainable
Development of the Society:
Ecology
of Information, ALA Current Public Library Initiatives
14-28
October 2005
by
Maurice J.
Freedman, MLS, PhD
Publisher,
Consultant, &
Past President, American Library Association
The balance of this paper will develop the role that libraries play in the ideas of literacy, information literacy, and the ecology of information, and relate the library and these ideas to the sustainable development of society.
The
Role of Libraries
In the United States, the public library movement had
its great impetus in the mid-nineteenth century. It was at a time huge waves of immigrants were arriving,
especially in the cities.
Some of the wealthy industrialists were concerned that
these people would not make a positive contribution to America. They feared that with their ignorance of the
language and their limited educations and high illiteracy rate, that these new
immigrants would create social problems and be a threat to those who arrived
before them.
In the cities of Boston and Baltimore, leading
philanthropists helped create the public libraries that continue to this day in
those cities. They saw the public
library as a place to which immigrants could come and be educated. They saw it as a place that they could learn
to read and learn about the ways of their new country.
These patrons of the public library did not make their
donations simply out of the goodness of their hearts. They understood that with literacy, education, and the
information that the public libraries provided, the new immigrants would have
the skills and knowledge to take their place in society. They would be able to take jobs, be trained,
and do what was necessary to meet their families’ needs and also to meet the
needs of their employers.
This was an early instance of sustainable development
provided by libraries and information.
The workforce—thanks to the public library—acquired the literacy skills
and knowledge to become part of the workforce.
Also, the new immigrants—with the information and education they
acquired from the library—were less likely to be a problem for society.
The development of the public library movement in the
mid-19th century flourished and grew. One essential element was that the public library was to be a
‘public’ library. That is use of the
library and its services was to be free for all of the citizens.
This was one of the foundations of the public library in
the United States. Everyone could use
the public library. No one would be
denied service and no one would get superior service based on their ability to
pay.
Many public libraries in the U.S. have the word ‘free’
in their name, e.g. the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Bedford Hills Free
Library, the Rye Free Reading Room, etc.
Equality
of Access and Equity of Access
Making the public library a free institution and open to
everyone on the same basis provides equality
of access. This means that everyone has
equal access to all of the materials and services the library has to
offer.
But what if the person cannot see? What if the person can only move with the
assistance of a wheel chair? What if
the person cannot speak English? The
idea of equality of access provides no assistance to any of these people.
Hence we now have the concept of equity of access. To be
equitable is to imply justice dictated by reason, conscience, and a natural
sense of what is fair to all. It isn’t fair to people who cannot see that
there are no library materials in a format that will inform, educate, or
entertain them. Without a wheelchair
ramp, a person who cannot walk will not be able to get into the library. If the stacks are too narrow, the
wheelchair-bound person will not be able to have access to the information in
those stacks.
Lastly,
the person—in the U.S.—who doesn’t speak English has no access to information
in the public library if there are no materials in that person’s language. In the non-English speaker’s case, free and
equal access is useless.
In
these and many other ways, the libraries of today—even though they provide free
and equal access—are challenged to provide equitable access to all of society.
Literacy
Simply,
literacy is the ability to read. Information
in any alphabetic format is meaningless splotches—be they on paper, online, or
in any other medium. One must know how
to read to acquire information.
Literacy is a fundamental prerequisite for the acquiring the information
we need for the sustainable development of society.
However,
literacy, by itself is of limited value.
Yes,
one can read, but where can one get the materials to read that will contribute
to one’s education? To help get a job?
To provide answers to questions about health, history, horoscopes, and
any of a multitude of other subjects?
Of
course, the public library must meet the needs of the person who cannot
read. There are other forms of
literacy—sight or sound literacy. In
these cases, equitable access is provided through audio and video tapes, DVDs,
CD-ROMs, etc.
Computer Literacy
The
ability to read is essentially a prerequisite for computer literacy. One has computer literacy if one can avail
him- or herself of the information that is accessible via the computer. Thus the ability to use a PC and to know how
to execute the commands that will permit one to access information from that PC
are crucial.
So
much of the information that we need today only is accessible via the
computer. With computer literacy one
can access information that may be in the computer’s memory or its hard drive,
or on a CD-ROM, a floppy disk, the Internet, or elsewhere, but it PC skills are
needed to gain access to the information stored in computer-readable formats.
Computer
literacy also includes the ability and knowledge to use the various
applications and programs to which the computer provides access.
Almost
all public libraries in the United States freely make available one or more PCs
with Internet access. Many also have
PCs available that permit people to do word processing, make spreadsheets, and
use other programs. This helps ensure
equity of access in that people who don’t otherwise have access to computers,
the Internet, or various PC applications know that in most cases they can have
access to all of these things for free at their local public library.
Review—Establishing a
Foundation for the Role of Libraries and Information in Sustainable Development
of Society
We
see that the free public library is the institution that is open to all, does
not discriminate on the basis of one’s ability to pay (or not pay), provides
equal access to all, and provides equitable access to people with special
needs. It also provides access to
information in a variety of formats.
Lastly for those who are computer literate, the free public library
provides access to a host of electronic services and functions through the
library’s PCs.
Thus,
in principle, anyone in the United States has access through their public
library to information in a variety of formats and languages.
But
having access to it does not mean that they know how to find what they need,
where to look, how to evaluate it, and how to use it.
Information Literacy
“Ultimately,
information literate people are those who have learned how to learn. They know how to learn because they know how
knowledge is organized, how to find information and how to use information in
such a way that others can learn from them. They are people prepared for
lifelong learning, because they can always find the information needed for any
decision or task at hand.”[1]
People
mistakenly think of information literacy as a skill new to the 21st
century. This is not so. Reference librarians throughout history have
had information literacy skills.
Knowing where to look, knowing which sources are reliable or not
reliable, are at least two of the information literacy skills that existed long
before there were computers.
However
the seemingly infinite amount of information that is available electronically
as well as in print has made the issue of information literacy an important
priority.
The
ALA’s Association for College & Research Libraries (ACRL) defines
information literacy as,
Information literacy is a
set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is
needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed
information."[2] Information literacy also is increasingly
important in the contemporary environment of rapid technological change and
proliferating information resources. Because of the escalating complexity of
this environment, individuals are faced with diverse, abundant information
choices--in their academic studies, in the workplace, and in their personal
lives. Information is available through libraries, community resources, special
interest organizations, media, and the Internet—and increasingly, information
comes to individuals in unfiltered formats, raising questions about its
authenticity, validity, and reliability… The uncertain quality and expanding
quantity of information pose large challenges for society. The sheer abundance
of information will not in itself create a more informed citizenry without [the
additional abilities] necessary to use information effectively.[3]
In
the United States, librarians in academic libraries through courses in
bibliographic instruction teach information literacy to college students and
faculty. In public libraries there are
classes for both the public and for the staff on how to use the Internet, how
to use PC software, how to find specialized resources in a given subject area,
and so on.
The
libraries in the United States recognize that information literacy is a skill
that must be developed and requires knowledge and training.
The
American Library Association’s Association for College and Research Libraries
has set forth five information literacy standards for competence in higher
education.[4] They are:
Standard
One:
The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the
information needed.
Standard
Two:
The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and
efficiently.
Standard
Three:
The information literate student evaluates information and its sources
critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base
and value system.
Standard
Four:
The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses
information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.
Standard
Five:
The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal, and
social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses
information ethically and legally.
These
standards spell out what one needs to know to be information literate. It is not enough to be able to read—it just
means that whatever information appears on a screen or in a book can be
read. But is that the information that
one wants?
There
is so much more one must know if one is
to find and use the information that one needs for school, for a job, for one’s
health, for one’s community, for one’s society.
The
skills comprising information literacy are not easily come by, but they are
crucial if libraries and information are to play a vital role in the
sustainable development of society.
It
is not enough for libraries to have the books on the shelves. It is not enough to provide computers and
access to the Internet. It is not
enough to provide access to valuable print and electronic reference works and
expensive commercial databases. Without
users who know how to utilize these information resources, the libraries
mission of meeting people’s information needs cannot be met. The materials and electronic information are
necessary conditions for information literacy, but they are not sufficient.
There
is a story told of the student who spent over an hour in his dormitory using
his computer to search for specific information on the Internet that he needed
for a report. Totally frustrated, he
went to the library and asked the reference librarian for help.
The
reference librarian conducted what has been called “the reference interview,”
that is, in a Socratic-like dialogue with the student, she asked several
questions in order to determine what the student really needed. Not unlike the psychotherapist, the
reference librarian must elicit from the user what the user really wants to
know through a process of skilled questions and attentive listening.
Having
satisfied herself that she knew what information he wanted and where it could
be found, she typed several keystrokes on her computer. The librarian then
turned her monitor around so the student could see the information displayed on
it that she had found.
He
said, “That’s it! That’s what I wanted
to know!”
And
here’s the important point to this story.
The student then asked the reference librarian,
How come your computer
was able to find that information and mine could not?
That
true story—similar incidents have occurred in numerous college libraries in the
U.S.—illustrates the crucial difference between literacy and information
literacy. The student could read but
didn’t have the information literacy skills to find the information he needed. He could have searched all day, gone to
countless sites listed in Google, read everything on those sites, but not find
what he was looking for.
Information Ecology
Information
ecology introduces some key distinctions that are of importance to the
sustainable development of society.
Nardi
and O’Day define an information ecology to be a “system of people, practices,
values, and technologies in a particular local environment.
In
information ecologies, the focus is “not on technology, but on human activities
that are served by technology.”[5]
Nardi
and O’Day go on to characterize the
library as an information ecology.
The library is “a place
with books, magazines, tapes, films, and librarians who can help you find and
use them. A library may have computers,
as well as story time for two-year olds and after-school study halls for
teens. In a library, access to
information for all clients of the library is a core value. This value shapes the policies around which
the library is organized, including those relating to technology. A library is a place where people and
technology come together in congenial relations, guided by the values of the
library.[6]
“Ecology”
in this context pertains to the whole local system—the people, the books, the
technology, and the array of facilities and services that comprise the library.
In
this respect it is much more than information literacy. It is not just having the skills enumerated
in the ACRL standards. It includes the
multiplicity of people, the physical building, the books, the computers, the
electronic resources accessible via those computers, and the library
staff. There is a whole interrelated
system that makes up the information ecology of the library.
Writers
on information ecology heavily stress that it is much more than
technology. How the technology is used,
what is one trying to accomplish with the use of the technology? What policies affect the use of the
technology? Who can have access to the
technology? What are the conditions for
usage—are there fees, does the monitor have a large print display capability,
does the computer translate the words on the screen into physical speech?
And
what is the policy of the library regarding the use of its computers? Who can use them? Who cannot? Are there
time limits for their use because the demand for the computers exceeds their
supply?
All
of these questions and their answers help shape the specific and local information ecology of the
library, especially in relation to the library’s technology services.
Nardi
and O’Day go on to state,
…humans help other
humans use technology. Simple things
are done with simple tools. The
library…sought out advanced technologies, but these technologies are carefully
integrated into existing habits and practices, according to the values of the
information ecology.”[7]
Information
ecology is introduced to enable us
to focus attention on
relationships involving tools and people and their practices. We want to travel beyond the dominant image
of the tool…, and image of a single person and his or her interactions with
technology. And we want to capture a
notion of locality that is missing from the system view.[8]
An ecology responds to what is present locally and what
interacts with what is local. It is
scaled to humans at the local level not large-scale systems.
Returning to the local library as an ecology of
information, whether the library is open or closed affects its ecology; whether
the librarian is skilled or unskilled has an impact on the library’s ecology; what
books are in the collection, what services are offered, etc. all help define
the ecology of the library.
At the same time, any change in any of these ingredients
changes the ecology of information comprising the library—a new librarian is
hired with different skills than the previous one; new books are added; new
computers are added, thus reducing the wait time for the public’s access to
them. Each of these changes is an
intervention in the library as an ecological system, and thus impacts and even
changes other elements in the system.
Addressing the larger issue, the ecology of information
in relation to the sustainable development of society, what we find is that the
larger society is comprised of innumerable information ecologies. We as individuals interact with local
information ecologies. And these
interactions cause changes in other elements of the respective ecologies with
which we interact.
We as individuals can have an impact on our local
information and other ecologies. The
various local ecologies and how they evolve will contribute to what larger
changes occur in society. All of the
libraries, separately and individually adopting policies that made Internet
access free to everyone by using the libraries’ computers and communication
circuits, overall ensured that virtually everyone in the nation has access to
the Internet. But this societal change
was only effected by the local libraries each buying computers and
communication lines and adopting open access policies for the public. It also must be noted, those decisions
involved numerous elements—library staff decision making, local funding
agencies agreeing to provide funds, advocacy efforts on behalf of the library
to get those funds, individuals in the library service area indicating that it
was their priority that the library provide Internet access.
All of these elements had to do with the local
ecological system, the public library.
Technology played a role, but in the situation described, human
interactions in a variety of contexts were the primary determinants in the
establishment of free Internet access at the local public library.
Each public library in its own way, with different local
factors and individuals contributing to the net result, instituted Internet
service.
Broadening the picture, what we observe is that
understanding the information ecology of the given system is of overriding
importance to sustaining development at the local level. It is only when the multiplicity of factors,
individuals, local conditions, technology, etc. are all taken into
consideration that the information sought is found, or the desired result is
achieved.
ALA
Current Public Library Initiatives
The American Library Association is comprised of a
variety of units. The largest kinds of
units in terms of participating members are the type-of-library divisions and
the type-of-work divisions. When we
examine ALA’s current public library initiatives, what we will do is see what
its Public Library Association (PLA)—the public library division of ALA—current
initiatives are. Because it will be of
interest most likely, we will briefly review some of the activities in U.S.
public libraries today.
ALA
- PLA Initiatives[9]
The
Smartest Card @ Your Library
PLA is embarking on a campaign to get all Americans to
sign up for a library card at their local public library. The average number of people in the United
States who use their local public library at least once a year is 65%. It is a good number, and aside from services
such as garbage collection it is the most heavily used local public
service. In addition, surveys have
consistently demonstrated that the public library is the most valued or
second-most valued public institution in a community. The only local agency that has placed higher is the fire
department—and fortunately most people never have to use its services.
The focus of this new campaign is to get that other 40%
signed up for library cards and to come in and use their local public libraries.
Partly it is the mission of the public library to
maximize the use of its facilities. But
also increased and high usage also serves as the best argument for increased
funding for the library. A campaign
that maximizes use will help the library get better support. Through its fine services it also will
convert new users—who barely knew the library existed—into active supporters of
the library. In many cases these people
will be advocates for better library funding.
Getting people to sign up for library cards serves a
number of purposes. One, it means that
the library’s resources will be better utilized. Two, it brings new people into the library, thereby increasing
the use of its resources. Three,
typically people find what they want at the library—thus they go home with a
positive attitude about the library.
Finally, it sends a strong message, with evidence to back up that
message, that the public library is serving the local community even better and
is thus worthy of greater financial support and other recognition for its
success.
The name of the campaign that PLA will launch is The Smartest Card @ Your Library. PLA issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for
a consultant to
work with the Public Library Association’s @Your Library Taskforce (public
librarians who are members of PLA and with PLA staff support) to build on and
strengthen the existing PLA’s Smartest Card @ your library campaign.
This
is an extremely important initiative.
Quoting from the RFP,
Campaign Goals
• The library
card will be the most valued and used card in every wallet.
• Funders/community leaders will value and support America’s public
libraries.
• All library staff will understand
the value of the campaign and be enthusiastic supporters
Objectives
For PLA:
• The number of cardholders will increase nationally.
• Every governor
will be presented with an honorary “smartest card.”
• All library staff
will receive instruction in word-of-mouth marketing.
• Library managers will have tools to help motivate their staffs to be
library advocates.
For local public libraries: