The Zombie Stack Exchanges That Just Won't Die
With public and academic libraries increasingly adopting alternative names for library services (knowledge centre; information commons etc...), is this a good thing for the provision of information and library services?
Is a change of name necessary as libraries adapt to the radical social, financial and technological changes affecting (western) society? As we reconstruct and reconstitute our information infrastructure does it make sense to search for a new term that takes us beyond what is traditionally understood as the library? Or is library a term that has stood the test of time, and still carries weight in the modern world?
Ben
I don't think that a name change is going to matter. If you have an information commons and you can't show that it's providing good value to the institution that funds it, it's just as likely to be cut down or shuttered as a library in the same situation.
A public library that I worked for was on the chopping block a few years ago due to city budget cuts. While this was a nice enough public library, it wasn't exactly cutting edge. There was nothing like an information commons there.
The library was saved because patrons came out in droves to the meeting where the decision on closing it was to be made. People came and spoke about what the library did for them, what value it had, and why they couldn't get those same services elsewhere. One man spoke about how he learned to read through a literacy program that the library provided, and that he'd gotten the first job of his life thanks to skills he learned there.
Public perceptions of libraries are not what we want them to be - I once heard about a survey where college students thought, on average, that a librarian had about a high-school diploma-level education. On the other hand, individuals' perceptions based on experience are usually right on. If you're providing good service, people don't care what you call it, and they'll go to bat for you. If you're not, don't expect a huge outcry on closing day.
The word "library" has great currency and is easily recognizable to users and non-users alike and generally attached to a concept of learning and recreation. Changing it won't change perceptions of our current relevance for the better . . . some of the vocabulary that we use within the library, such as "reference" and "circulation" might stand an update, however.
Does it matter what it's called, really? A library can be known as a computer place, an entertainment place, a knowledge place, a program place or a book place -- it's what the library provides that matters. (I also don't think how the materials are housed makes all that much difference. One of my favorite libraries is in an old grocery store.)\ In my opinion as a life-long library user (and now librarian myself), what matters more is the approachability of the staff and currency/availability of the materials.
I always find it a little bit stupid of libraries try to describe their role and activities with alternative terms such as "information" and "knowledge". These terms are used in a lot of contexts and libraries have no clue about many of them. So using this terms is not professional but meaningless PR talk in my opinion. The term "library" is not holding back libraries. There are other reasons why some libraries struggle to cope with current changes and changing names would not help. One should better think about the actual role and purposes of libraries.
So let's pick this apart a bit. Here are the problems I see spoken of with respect to "library" and "librarian:"
Changing the generic name of the physical building is unlikely to help with any of the above; recall (those of you who are old enough) the snickering over "sanitation engineers." If we look like we're trying to cadge unearned prestige (which is, I'm sorry to say, exactly what the ASKPro thing looked like from the outside), we lose.
Changing the name of the person or the person's job... might help, at least in some eyes; I don't see any problem with "data curator" or "records manager" or "UX specialist" or even "informationist" or "knowledge manager" (though I have issues with some forms of KM), much less "taxonomist" or "ontologist" or any of the other jobs we do.
Perhaps we don't need an overarching identifying term for ourselves any longer. I like "librarian" and use it proudly and defiantly to refer to myself, but if what used to be "one profession" becomes multitudes and works in a multitude of places, that's not a bad outcome at all.