The debate over the future of public libraries has made area news with the cities of Camarillo and Santa Clarita electing to withdraw from their respective county library systems. Financial efficiency is the motive behind these moves as these cities believe they can provide better service with resident’s tax money.
Camarillo and Santa Clarita have a track record of providing excellent service to their residents. While their county was cutting library service and closing branches, these cities built new libraries and maintained healthy balance sheets.
Both cities are considering maximizing library efficiency by outsourcing operations to a private library management company. Replacing unionized public employee jobs with private sector employment rarely occurs quietly. In Santa Clarita, the issue was demogogued with claims of “putting a price literacy”, “emphasizing profits over readers”, “privatizing public assets” and other various “evils” of profit making companies.
Of course, city contracts with private firms to provide services are nothing new. Santa Clarita’s public transit system is operated by a private firm. The city still owns the busses and other assets of the system.
The Future of Libraries
Ventura County’s library system has suffered from steep budget cuts which forced the unpopular closure of Ventura’s Wright Library. In response to the diminished service in his city, Ventura city manager Rick Cole is rethinking the role of the public library. In a recent blog post, he concludes:
As we navigate the current crisis in funding our existing Library system, it makes sense to keep one eye on the kind of libraries we want for the future.
In his post, Cole refers to a column written by Neil Pierce which presents examples of how libraries are serving larger swathes of their community by providing non-traditional library services. This transition aligns with the DaVinci Institute’s vision outlined in a 2007 paper entitled “The Future of Libraries: Beginning the Great Transformation”. The paper predicts “libraries will transition from a center of information to a center of culture”:
A culture-based library is one that taps into the spirit of the community, assessing priorities and providing resources to support the things deemed most important. Modern day cultural centers include museums, theaters, parks, and educational institutions. The library of the future could include all of these, but individual communities will be charged with developing an overall strategy that reflects the identity and personality of its own constituency.
Libraries adopting this cultural approach maintain collections of seeds and garden tools, host local groups in meeting rooms, show films, exhibit local artists and provide podcast and video recording studios for their patrons.
In a previous post, I wrote about how coffeehouses can become business “hives” which are collaborative combinations of coffeehouse, business center, and start-up incubator space. Some academic libraries have adopted a similar model. Anthony Townsend writes about the success of NYU in revamping its library:
These spaces are buzzing around the clock, bringing together the three catalysts of creative, collaborative knowledge work – snacks and coffee, computers and networks, and deeply motivated men and women.
Since the majority of the country’s public libraries are operated by municipalities, local control of libraries is not a new concept. What is new is the rethinking of how these facilities should be operated to better serve their communities. County library systems burdened with large overhead costs are forced to provide a traditional “one size fits all” approach to service.
Cities like Camarillo and Santa Clarita are leading the way in rethinking how libraries are built and operated and the services they provide to their communities.
