The public library matters. It matters for community and culture. It matters for education and literacy. It matters for inclusion and democracy. It matters for personal and social well-being. It matters as a stalwart against an increasingly privatised and politicised world.
The public library remains one of the last truly public places belonging to all, where a person is not a consumer but instead a citizen, free from the commercial constraints and political pressures that define many other areas and aspects of contemporary life.
The public library is a public place where people can freely access and use information, learn, research, connect, network and socialise. It is a public place where people can strengthen their educational achievements and engage in life-long learning. It is a public place where people can acquire and refine literacy competencies and skills. It is a public place where culture is displayed, preserved and promoted.
As many people may feel increasingly isolated, the public library offers an antidote to isolation by virtue of its status as a community and information hub that supports a common purpose of connection, communication and contribution.
Recently, the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport commissioned a study measuring which activities make people happy. For respondents, going to the library was one of their top activities inducing joy.
According to this study, engagement with the public library can provide people with the same uplift as a £1,359 pay rise, or an additional pay increase of £113 per person per month.
Similarly, according to recent research by the Pew Research Center, 91 per cent of Americans say that their local public library is important to their communities, whilst three out of every four Americans say that the public library is important to them and their families.
Further, the overwhelming majority of Americans (90 per cent) believe that their communities would be negatively impacted if their public library was reduced or shuttered.
Yet, the public library is challenged on numerous fronts including uninformed claims that the Internet and information communication technologies are usurping its purpose, harmful financial reductions under the merciless banner of austerity, and general growing public apathy and neglect.
These challenges have direct impacts on its operations, services and resources, resulting in more limited features and offerings that, in turn, exacerbate these same challenges. It is a vicious cycle corroding the public library’s figurative and literal standing.
This vicious cycle must be broken if community and culture matter, if education and literacy matter, if inclusion and democracy matter, if we matter. If we turn our back on the public library, we turn our back on community, culture, education, literacy, learning, democracy and ourselves.
The public library is not being usurped by the Internet or information communication technologies; on the contrary, the public library is more important today than ever because of its commitment to providing free, equitable and open access to diverse kinds and formats of information.
Popular online search engines like Google are private corporations using proprietary computer algorithms that manipulate information in search results, privileging websites and services that pay to be featured prominently in lists of results to search queries.
While much of the internet is devoted to consumerism and private enterprise, the public library is devoted to develop the citizen and community
The public library’s philosophy and practice is the exact opposite: to make information freely available and accessible in equitable, open and neutral ways in order to cultivate communities and culture instead of generating profits.
The public library is being financially assaulted for austerity’s sake. Even in more prosperous times, the public library usually struggles with perennially flat, and ever-diminishing, finances. These paltry finances directly impact the resources and services that it provides.
Reducing an already meagre budget will only exacerbate current operational, resource and service challenges that are themselves results of previous and on-going financial reductions. If we continue to gut the public library, it is we who are ultimately gutted.
The public library is also confronting a general growing apathy and neglect. Some people argue they can get all the information they need online and, indeed, there is much information available online. However, much of that information is problematic in that it is proprietary and often is of questionable quality.
Some people believe that Google’s results can meet all their information needs. But unlike Google and other search engines, various smartphone or tablet apps, and other online information services, the public library belongs to everyone in order to help enrich their community, instead of a private company with narrow, commercial and profit-driven interests.
While much of the Internet is devoted to consumerism and private enterprise, the public library is devoted to develop the citizen and community.
But this contemporary era is not the first to seemingly turn its back on the public library.
The Roman Empire boasted of an impressive public library system that gradually declined and disappeared in large part because of apathy and neglect (and the budget cuts and financial strains that accompany them).
It is no coincidence that the death of the Roman Empire’s public library system coincided with the ancient civilization’s eventual demise, coupled with the emergence of the so-called Dark Ages where education, literacy, culture and an informed citizenry became long-forgotten ideals.
History repeats itself. It would be an epic tragedy if we wittingly or unwittingly followed the Roman Empire’s sad example. We are at a critical juncture in which the future of the public library hangs in the balance. The illusions of online information, financial reductions, and apparent apathy must be urgently and forcefully addressed. People must be reminded that the public library is an essential information and community hub that exists to nurture their communities and culture not for commercial reasons but for civic, educational, and democratic reasons.
The public library must be protected and supported, not reduced or closed, in order to provide the many important resources and services that it must fulfill and deliver, if we permit it.
We should expect more, not less, from the public library in this information age of the Internet, increasing amounts and kinds of information, and diverse information communications technologies.
We must recognise the public library as a place for community, education, literacy, democracy and culture. But we cannot expect more from the public library ifwe continue to be apathetic and allow its gradual erosion on various fronts. The public library deserves our collective attention and defence.
If we believe in it, support it and defend it, the public library, in return, believes, defends and supports us by helping strengthen a high quality of life for our collective, personal, cultural and educational well-being.
Indeed, the very concept and reality of the public library promises us a better life. It is therefore through the public library that we can reaffirm that we matter.
Marc Kosciejew is head of department at the University of Malta’s Department of Library Information and Archive Sciences and the deputy chairman of the Malta Library and Information Association.