Shafted

“Even the most avid reader in this culture is invariably going to spend his or her time with other media – with games, television, movies or the internet. And these other forms of culture have intellectual or cognitive virtues in their own right – different from, but comparable to, the rewards of reading”

Steven Johnson “Everything bad is good for you” – London : Allen Lane, 2005, p22.

In order to accommodate and participate in the enormous changes currently occurring in communications, librarians need to drop old prejudices and embrace the new media.

Many libraries have or have had a policy which says that the audio-visual materials they purchase should be “literature based” – that is, based on a book. This is an argument created by librarians in the last century to justify the purchase of new media for their collections. Reactionary managers, nervous about overstepping their mark by purchasing items which weren’t primarily print based, thought they needed this kind of justification. Once they got the go-ahead from their governing bodies the doors were opened for the purchase of some of the great masterworks of children’s film such as the animated “Alice in wonderland” and for teenagers Francis Ford Coppola’s “The outsiders” based on H E Hinton’s remarkable novel.

Using “literature based” as a selection criterion no longer has any validity in the 21^st century. “Toy story”, “Finding Nemo” and “The Incredibles” have no literary antecedents. Does that make them dangerous?

By conducting a conscious campaign to avoid the purchase of Disney DVDs in the belief that the Disney Corporation is part of a broader globalisation conspiracy to turn all of us into homogenised consumers, is the same as arguing that Oxford University Press was used as a tool to advance British imperial ambitions.

The librarian’s role is to provide a balance. As well as fulfilling their primary purpose: “give ’em what they want” i.e. Disney and Dreamworks product, librarians must also select items which explain the world in which we live. DVDs such as “The corporation” and books like “No logo” aren’t for children, but can be well understood by teenagers.

 I think that the point that needs to be made is that we have gone beyond the information age. We are now in the marketing age, where almost everything we see and hear has been manipulated to promote sales. For example the news establishes the emotional environment and current affairs shows contain the pay-off – advertising pharmaceuticals and slimming products and warning against using independent contractors. Play it safe, be normal.

This is a personal view of modern propaganda. It is dangerous for librarians to allow their own prejudices to unduly influence the selection process. Written selection criteria are designed to give the bureaucrats and the public confidence in the librarians’ professionalism and I believe that their confidence is well placed.

But if, for example, a Disney gap suddenly appeared, which showed that the most significant works in modern animation were missing from a collection, questions would rightly be asked. We can’t say that it’s a load of manipulative rubbish, because that is a view that could be challenged by a multitude of critics and the public themselves. The budget of most public libraries is robust enough to allow for the purchase of popular DVD titles.

Some say that libraries are in unnecessary competition with video stores and taking away their business. The same is not said about other major competitors: bookshops and newsagents. Why?

 Is anyone suggesting libraries don’t buy Harry Potter because it would put Angus & Robertson and Borders in the poor house? What about mega-giants K Mart and Big W cherry-picking bestsellers and undercutting bookshops on their most profitable items? Libraries are small fry in this war.

The arguments are the same for DVDs. Those who can afford it will buy or hire them for a fee. Others will wait to borrow them, when available, from their local library.

 Advances in broadband technology will see commercial digital libraries appear on the internet and we will witness the decline and possible demise of the walk-in Blockbuster store.

Digital media copyright law will play a major role in the library’s response to technological change. And thanks to the Australia – US free trade agreement this law will be handed down from Capitol Hill, which has shown to be a good friend to the media moguls who contribute handsomely to the cause.

The printed word is most likely heading in the same direction.

It will not be long before the library will be a portable handheld device with access to everything.

New “books” will be either pay-per-read or contain advertising, which may be in the traditional internet form of banner ads, etc. or perhaps product placement in the actual content, customised for individual readers based on stored internet search preferences and credit and loyalty card details.

The content will be text, multimedia, interactive, anything you want.

Most likely this new library will come in a variety of sizes, just like today’s books, with touch or voice controls to let you navigate to anywhere you want.  

All this may be a long term threat, but there are still plenty of people out there who desire the human to human contact offered in a public library – some good old fashioned contact with a genuine human being who hasn’t been brainwashed into behaving like an always cheerful, “have a nice day” corporate marionette. Librarians recognize the importance of meaning, so understandably they are uncomfortable with the masks they are requested to don by the pen pushing weasels in senior management who are obsessed by image.

Libraries once contained clay tablets. The great library at Alexandria was filled with scrolls – bits of papyrus and animal skins. 1500 years later, books were the go. Today, the transition to digital media is well under way. Librarians must disassociate themselves from the Luddites and actively participate in this major evolutionary process and work out ways to ensure that access is guaranteed for all sections of the community.