From time to time, I hear the sentiment expressed:
"This is a library, not an x"
where x = one of the following:
a internet cafe
a coffee shop
a video arcade
a child care centre
an the list continues.
In a recent post on the YALSA blog, the library is this time compared to a supermarket - both in the way that it offers its services, and the way that its visitors use the service. It bemoans the habits of young people in using libraries as a place where they just go to grab something - anything - off the shelves, and only when they really need it. A place that you visit briefly to get what you need, but don't stay.
But more and more, we're encouraged to take a retail approach and learn to use marketing strategies in providing library services. To create, not only an information service, but an information experience. That means being able to engage library visitors the moment that they walk in the door, and present them with immediate reading choices through displays of face-out stock. And, realistically, most library visitors aren't time-rich enough to spend an hour or two at the library.
Furthermore, what may strike some observers as being a simple quick-and-easy "supermarket" service, where one walks in and "picks something up" is a little more complicated below the surface.
Back in the 1960s, a children's television show was designed to provide accessible educational viewing for young children. It was innovative for its time, because it introduced the idea of providing high quality education through methods used in television advertising. Child psychologists and educators teamed up with television producers and marketing experts. That show was called Sesame Street.
I think there is sometimes a misconception that taking a more "retail" approach to libraries somehow detracts from the educational value of the service, or ignores the "library science" approach to managing libraries. But they don't necessarily have to be opposing, mutually exclusive forces. Libraries have a valuable product and service - all that a retail approach offers is a more effective way of engaging library visitors.
And just as supermarket shelves are organised to be easily navigated, as well as have the most attractive stock displayed in order to sell as much of their product as possible, so too should libraries use similar strategies to provide ease of access to navigate the collections, and provide clear choices for the many visitors who don't necessarily know what they want, and are just browsing (but only have 10 minutes to find a book to borrow).
And at the same time, provide services that have made other businesses become social hubs for their users, whether it be a coffee shop, or gaming machines, or wireless internet, or board games. No, these things aren't going to lead library users to necessarily read more, any more than a coffee shop in Borders will, but it encourages people to interact socially in the library space, which is somewhat at the heart of building communities.
