You would think we’d have had enough of change at GPL. And yet a public library is a living, breathing, growing organism that is hard to hold back. In fact, it always has been that way. It is only the rate of change that has increased.
I am 50 years old (yikes!), and in that half century libraries have moved from stamped checkouts and drawers full of cards to self-checkout kiosks and automated catalog systems. When I sold library automation systems in the late 80’s, librarians didn’t yet trust computers. For years they operated with duplicate systems: Card catalogs AND automated systems side by side. They were slow to adapt to change. It was a cautious approach that had worked well for libraries to that point – little did we all know that this was just the beginning. Change would soon become the norm.
Today, the library is both the same as and very different than your parents library. Technology has been woven into everything we do. Programs, events, and education are much bigger parts of the library’s mission, and our buildings function more as community hubs than depositories. Through all of this change, the original form of library technology – the book – is still an important part of what we do.
In order to keep up with this ever-increasing rate of change, the public library must be agile. Agility is measured by our ability to respond to the changing needs of our community at just the right moment. Sometimes this means finding funding for a brand new technology. Sometimes it means saying goodbye to an outdated one. And once in a while it means making a change to our facility to be flexible in meeting our patron’s needs.
We recently initiated such a change in our building. The problem was that our teen department had outgrown its designated area. In the last year, Emily Ellis’ success with teens meant greater numbers of teens hanging out in the teen room to do homework, talk, read, and play video games. This is what we had hoped for! But unfortunately that success conflicted with the desire of our adult patrons to have a reasonably quiet study area nearby, especially since the teen room does not have doors to enclose it. We did not want to discourage our sometimes boisterous but well-behaved teens from using the library, but something needed to give. Fortunately, we realized that we had the solution right in front of us. Moving the teen room downstairs to the multimedia area would give them plenty of space, a reference desk, and most importantly, doors that closed! Movies and audio books could be integrated into the adult and children’s collections, allowing easier browsing of similar items. We also moved new books upstairs to join the other adult materials.
Any time a change is introduced, there will be a period of chaos as all the players adjust to the new environment. So we don’t make changes lightly – but we are excited because we believe this change will result in increased traffic through formerly underused areas of the building and a better use of our facility as a result.
Better service for teens, better service for adults. Our patrons (of all ages) are the reason change is worth the work – whether it is saving our library or merely changing our floorplan.
