Deb Carver welcomes Michael Gorman
to the UO Libraries.
What is the current state of libraries and of education for librarianship? Where are we going, and what part will technology play in our future? Is literacy still important? American Library Association president-elect Michael Gorman's views on these questions are sometimes provocative but always insightful and interesting. The philosophy of this witty and articulate speaker, who is concerned with the meaning libraries carry and the part they play in the life of a society, has been shaped by a lifetime in the profession. On Friday, February 4, 2005, UO Libraries faculty and staff were joined by colleagues from such institutions as Central Oregon Community College, Oregon State University, and Portland State University to hear Gorman talk about "Libraries Today and Tomorrow." His appearance was sponsored by the UO Library Staff Development committee, and was videotaped; email Laine Stambaugh or phone her at 6-1895 to view the tape.
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Deb Carver welcomes Michael Gorman |
Gorman planned to cover three main areas: the pressures currently felt by the profession and by libraries; our assets and what will sustain us; and predictions for the future. He ran over time on the first section, so that the last sections did not receive as much attention. If you've read his later books, such as Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness & Reality (Z678.9.A4 U624 1995), Our Enduring Values: Librarianship in the 21st Century, (Z716.4 .G67 2000), or his latest, The Enduring Library: Technology, Tradition, and the Quest for Balance, (Z716.4 .G665 2003) you'll know just how unfortunate this was.
Gorman linked some of the pressures currently facing libraries to events in society at large. He discussed how pressures on school libraries or public libraries can later show up as pressures on academic libraries as well, when students show up on campus lacking basic literacy or library skills. We see a lot of enthusiasm for getting very young children to read, he said, but little support or follow-through to keep them reading: when school budgets are cut, music and libraries are usually the first to go. Yet if one cannot read sustained complex texts one is barred from real learning and from interaction with the human record. The digital divide is real, but it is a part of a larger societal divide between the poor and the well-off. In The Enduring Library, Gorman writes:
Many of today's poor and otherwise disadvantaged do suffer from a lack of access to the kind of information that can be found readily on the Internet, but they also suffer from underfunded public education, economically straitened libraries, low levels of literacy, and a debased culture of lowbrow entertainment. How are people living in such a culture going to have their lives and mental landscapes changed by being given access to the Internet?
Gorman said that he had proposed that ALA's overall objective should be universal access to high-quality library service because it improves and changes people's lives, but the proposal was not accepted.
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Gorman at the podium |
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He also discussed some of the negatives associated with current technological advances. Libraries have taken on funding for internet and electronic database access, including hardware, software, and systems departments, while still having to carry on and fund "traditional" library functions. The impermanence of digital records was touched on via the current discussion about making government documents only available digitally, and the abuses to which that could lead under an unscrupulous government. He pointed out that there is a huge difference between information and knowledge, and that the best means of conveying them may differ. He stressed that bibliographic instruction for undergraduates should include teaching them that electronic resources are not always preferable to print resources. Students need to know how to assess which is the best source and how to evaluate different information sources, be they books, journals, or web sites.
Along with the "graying" of our profession comes the problem of library education for those entering the field. There is no longer a common core curriculum that will prepare new librarians for library work, and trends like web design are displacing courses such as cataloging. Gorman believes that understanding the concepts and system behind cataloging rules is necessary for understanding the organization of knowledge in the library catalog. This understanding is essential for reference and systems work as well as "technical services" work. He maintains that at the moment one cannot hire a newly-graduated librarian and count on them having a basic grounding in the types of subjects they need to succeed on the job, and he strongly advocates that ALA should insist on a core group of subjects taught by core faculty members (not adjuncts) as a perquisite for ALA-accreditation so that all new librarians emerge from school with a solid background in the basics of their profession.
So, Gorman asks, what are some of the assets we bring with us when we face the many challenges ahead? Our values: we believe in the stewardship and preservation of the human record. We believe in service and are committed to literacy and learning. We believe in the right to intellectual freedom and to privacy. As well, our skills: expertise in information retrieval, reference work, and cataloging. And, our collections: they are of incalculable value, and the greater part of them will never be digitized. Lastly, librarians have a good public image, and have public esteem and trust, even if not funding.
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Michael Gorman and Catherine Flynn-Purvis |
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If you missed Michael Gorman's lecture, I recommend a viewing of the videotape. If his take on digitization, systems departments, and electronic resources disturbed, piqued, or interested you, I recommend a perusal of chapters 8 and 9 of The Enduring Library, where he gets more meatily into a discussion of electronic documents and resources in today's libraries. If you have time, read the whole book! I found Our Enduring Values and The Enduring Library to be books filled with enduring insight into the meaning of our work, the problems we face, and the possibilities ahead.
THIS WILL NEED CLEANING UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! From the sidebar we quoted : Gorman in print:
"Libraries exist to acquire, give access to, and safeguard carriers of knowledge
and information in all forms and to provide instruction and assistance in the use
of the collections to which their users have access. In short, libraries exist
to give meaning to the continuing human attempt to transcend space and time in
the advancement of knowledge and the preservation of culture."
—Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness, & Reality
"Illiteracy and aliteracy—knowing how to read, but not reading— are
serious social problems with which libraries should be directly concerned. The
portion of society that does not read, that cannot or will not deal with coherent
linear text, is the portion of society doomed to being an underclass—subject
to manipulation and exploitation thanks to that unwillingness and short attention
span. ... Libraries are about empowering the unempowered through knowledge and
information—not about participating in the distribution of an electronic
opiate of the people."
—Future Libraries: Dreams, Madness, & Reality
"One of the most important and valuable achievements of electronic systems is the
way in which archival collections have been made available to global audiences."
—Enduring Library: Technology, Tradition, and the Quest for Balance
"Libraries are supremely democratic institutions. They stand for freedom,
equality, and the rights of humankind. The idea that democracy depends on a
well-informed electorate may be a truism, but it is true for all that. In a wider
sense, democracy depends on education, and libraries are integral to education."
—Enduring Library: Technology, Tradition, and the Quest for Balance
Gorman's 8 "Core Values" of Librarianship:
Stewardship
Service
Intellectual Freedom
Rationalism
Literacy & Learning
Equity of Access to Recorded
Knowledge and Information
Privacy
Democracy
Michael Gorman signs David Landazuri's copy of the
Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd ed. (fondly known to
catalogers as "AACR2").