Critical review of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Public Libraries’ paper “Tomorrow's Library: Discussion Paper”.

This paper is freely available: http://www.plvn.net.au/sites/default/files/TLTD002_Tomorrow's Library Discussion Paper final web.pdf

In 2012, the Minster for Local Government, Hon. Jeanette Powell, established the Ministerial Advisory Council on Public Libraries, who have produced this paper. The aim of the Council is to help ensure that public libraries in Victoria adequately provide for patrons in the future, especially taking into account emerging technologies. In this paper is a broad overview of the issues relevant to this aim, which, overall, is thorough and does not overlook many important concerns.

One of the most important issues discussed in the paper is that with technology constantly changing and the public’s increasing reliance on it, library staff need to be skilled in teaching patrons how to use all sorts of new technologies. Recent studies and articles have researched, or at least touched upon, this, for example:  “it is becoming vital that public library staff develop more advanced instructional techniques.” (Dunford, 2012, p. 323) and “There are significant reasons why library directors should observe the commonsense injunction to train the trainers, if their libraries are to embrace their augmented role as public space, community hub and place of learning.” (Ferguson, 2012, p. 31). To see that the Council has identified this as significant issue is reassuring that they are on the right track.

Another major technological issue in recent years has been the rising popularity of e-books in public libraries. One survey from the USA has found that demand for e-books has increased dramatically and is expected to continue rising (Library Journal & SchoolLibrary Journal, 2012, p. 5). If the statistics from Australian libraries are even close to those in the survey, the acquisition, lending, and use of e-books is going to have an increasingly large impact. Yet, the Council’s report barely mentions them.

This is surprising considering ongoing budget restraints, if not cuts, and the high costs associated with physical item loans to remote regions or patrons without easy access to a library. Collection management is also a relation issue: more relevant collections are seen as being of high priority (Ministerial Advisory Council onPublic Libraries, 2012, p. 4) yet the most popular genres of books are hardly acquired in e-book form (Veros, 2012, p. 298).

An imposing problem for public libraries, as the Council have noted, is their changing needs of their physical spaces. A point is made that to allow access to people with disabilities can be problematic for some libraries without the necessary infrastructure. It is disappointing then that the Council acknowledges the use of libraries by people with disabilities but says nothing of improving access to resources for them. Surely if libraries are to be helpful to all of society then people with vision and learning disabilities need to have appropriate resources at their disposal.

There is also almost no mention of the use of Web 2.0 technologies such as instant messaging, tagging, RSS feeds, or social networking. The only example of such technology is that of apps, and while smartphones are becoming increasingly popular (“Generation App”, 2011), there will still be people who do not use them for their library interactions.  

So while this review has focused on a few significant issues that the report seems to have overlooked, overall it is comprehensive. Based on the large number of issues it needs to address, selection of the right sort of technology and staff that can operate and train others in its use will be necessary for public libraries to continue to succeed.

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