REAL PUBLIC LIBRARIAN

Thursday, January 25, 2007

On holidays!


...and assiduously attempting to ignore work or anything worklike (including this blog!) Have so far managed to keep 1 new year's resolution - joining the Outrigger Club and turning up for 2 (extremely arduous) training sessions every week (including a 5.30 am session!) Hope I can keep it up when I return to work this coming Monday. In contrast, a whirl on the Blaster Boats and a swirl on the waterslides at the local water park with youngest son and husband during a work social club outing was a very laid back affair. Off to see another local wonder this weekend - the "Bat Cleft" tour at Mt Etna near Rockhampton - "Experience the rush of thousands of tiny bats flashing past you at dusk. Little bent wing bats fly out from their roost in Bat Cleft to feed, providing a spectacular natural show." Another New Year's resolution - we truly live in (a) paradise, and I'm gonna take the time to appreciate it! (work being but a short and pleasant diversion from the resort lifestyle that we enjoy.)

If any colleagues happen to be passing by in the year ahead, why not make a detour to our little neck of the woods - we can always throw a mattress on the floor for you!

Saturday, January 06, 2007

On the fall of the "big reader"

Have been back at work now for a week, and ruminating about the year (and years) to come. It's Council policy to give all its employees an enforced break between Christmas and New Year; in previous years I have been able to argue that the Libraries should stay open, but this is not very popular with library staff (being a small library we don't have so many casual staff that want to work through either, although two brave staff volunteered to clear the chute and shelve on one of the closed days, good on ya guys), so this year we closed all the libraries between Christmas and New Year (and I must admit, being one of the people who usually works the New Year shift, it was a welcome break). With Chirstmas falling on a Monday it was a particularly long break as we closed at midday on Friday. So I was looking forward to the throng of customers ready to break down our door come reopening day Jan 2 - well Tuesday came and went, and, while we were moderately busy, it was no big deal...ditto Wednesday...and indeed ditto every day this week! I remember past years after holidays (particularly the Easter weekend of years gone by) when there literally was a throng of borrowers waiting for the doors to open. I also remember customers who would almost need a truck to carry off their reading matter - we still have those, but they are now a minority and not the norm as in years past. And, yes, after a 20 year pattern of steadily increasing borrowing statistics of around 2-3% per year (12% in 1996 when we relocated the main branch library), last year showed a decline of around 2% - and this despite an increase in population of around 3%. And I have finally admitted to myself that this is probably the start of an inevitable trend.

Better minds than mine have speculated on the cause for this almost universal decline in library lending, but here's my take based on 20 years of observing the same community's library-using habits:

1. The obvious - reading takes time. There are so many competing priorities for people's time that the act of sustained recreational reading is almost a luxury. The people who still value reading are tending to be more picky about what they read - quality over quantity.

2. Another obvious one - competing formats - 20 years ago television was almost our only competitor, and it was pretty bad. Now we have pay TV and video/DVD rental and of course, the Internet and Google. And with more affluence people can self-supply by buying books.

3. Changing demographics - the older folk whose habit it was to read voluminously are - how can I put this delicately - passing on. The baby boomers who might have taken their place have lots of alternative activities to occupy as in points 1 and 2 above and are not likely to take up the mantle. Though they will still be a major support base for libraries - emphasis again on the quality vs quantity.

4. Families - the number of children in our community, while having grown in absolute terms, is static in comparative terms. 10-15 years ago we were kept very busy indeed with school assignments. Now a request for assistance with school assignments is almost a rarity. Use of picture books is still high; but over a 20 year period the loans of junior fiction and non-fiction have slowed to almost a trickle (again, kids demand quality over quantity and we are keen to comply - no dusty old crap for these customers!). As for teenage readers, we still have our heart-gladdening bookworms, but they are in a definite minority. Not surprisingly, loans of games, DVDs and Cds outnumber book loans 20 to 1 for this age group.

Having admitted the inevitable, but still wanting to passionately champion the value of libraries, my mind turns now to how to measure this value - it was sure easy measuring quantity, but how do we measure quality? And how to impress on our "new" breed customers that we care about quality too? (changing perceptions about the dusty old book barn they associate with libraries of the past - partly achieved through borrowing retail techniques for marketing and display which works with a great deal of success, I can say from experience).

Sorry I have to leave it hanging there as I realize I have a bit of research to do...