I want to be a Scandibrarian: Scandinavian Libraries & their Amazing Use of Space

In my International Librarianship class we have been talking via Skype to librarians all over the world. So far we have spoken to a librarian in Qatar, a librarian in India, and most recently to Maru Peltonen, a Finnish Librarian who works as a children’s librarian in the suburb of Espoo near the capital, Helsinki. Maru was very interesting to listen to and had some very intriguing ideas about libraries, particularly in regards to library space. 

According to Maru, what is most important to Finnish library users are the library’s collection and its space, not its activities. Finnish librarians have taken their users’ opinions seriously and have devoted a lot of thought into making their libraries comfortable welcoming spaces. As Maru put it, “some people just want to have somewhere to be, and they go to the library to find that.” She went on to say that inviting, comfy libraries make users feel welcomed and create the idea of the library as a positive place in the community. Those austere, cold libraries with their shushing librarians create an atmosphere of negativity, and this is certainly not the image libraries need to have right now.

Rum för Barn

Maru further illustrated the way libraries in Finland and other parts of Scandinavia have approached the issue of space by showing us some pictures of some amazing libraries. By far, the coolest of those libraries was Stockholm’s Rum för Barn. Rum för Barn literally translates to ‘Room for Children’ and is essentially the children’s area in the Kulturhuset library. This library is incredible. Half library, half playground, Rum för Barn is filled with places for kids to climb, cubby holes where they can hide, and even hammocks for them to relax in while they read! Maru said that as a children’s librarian, her main goal is to get kids excited about reading, and what kid wouldn’t be thrilled about going to Rum för Barn? The Swedish librarians who designed this innovative library were clearly thinking about using the space to appeal to their patrons, and they certainly succeeded (I’ve heard that there is actually a waiting list to get in to Rum för Barn at certain times during the year!).

I am now desperate to work at a Scandinavian library and be a Scandinavian Librarian (Scandibrarian). Those Swedes and Finns are certainly on the cutting edge of librarianship! Now all I have to do is learn Swedish...

To learn more about Kulturhuset and Rum för Barn, click here. Picture above found here.

A Female Dominated Profession or Not?

Last week’s IST 511 guest speakers were excellent. They were: Blane Dessy, former Director of the United States Department of Justice Library and currently the new Director of the Federal Library and Information Network at the Library of Congress, and Stephen Weiter, former law librarian and new Library Director for SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Both librarians who spoke to us were very interesting speakers and gave us a lot of advice about our future profession. Both librarians hold very prestigious positions and have worked very hard and long to get to those current positions. Both librarians also happen to be men.

Before you start to groan, let me say that I am not pointing out the gender of the presenters to complain, nor am I trying to be antagonistic in any way.  I simply found it noteworthy and it reminded me of the complexities of the gender divide in the library profession. One of my professors, a PhD student, mentioned in class once that although librarianship is widely viewed as a female dominated profession, that is not actually true. To say that librarianship is a female dominated profession would imply that there are more females than males in leadership and director positions. While it is a fact that there are more female librarians and library students (a glance around any of my classrooms will attest to that) male librarians tend to dominate in library leadership positions. Some* have argued that this is not actually true, but something in me tends to believe that it still might be.

I know that our last two guest speakers were women, and I think that it is good for us to have both male and female guest speakers in our introductory course. The representation of both genders in the profession brings more diversity to our class lectures, and I think that everyone has benefitted from hearing all the speakers thus far. I also know that Syracuse University’s Dean of Libraries is a woman, and that there are countless other women in leadership positions in libraries. I would just kind of like to see those statistics for myself. If you have any more information for me on this topic, please let me know. It would ease my mind a bit to get some more concrete facts.

*Note: I have tried to do a little research on my own. In her article, A Female-Dominated Profession in the Male-Dominated Workforce of Higher Education, Turner states that “William Fisher’s The Question of Gender in Library Management…addressed a misconception about males in leadership roles in library management” (5). I have tried to gain access to Fisher’s article for myself, even though it is a bit outdated, but the SU Library will only get it for me via interlibrary loan. I might just have to wait to find out more…

The Power of the 'Off' Button

Evidently, the majority of last week’s IST 511 blogs consisted of discussions about the always controversial eBooks. I chose not to discuss eBooks last week, because I felt as though I had made my views of eBooks clear in my first blog post several weeks ago. (To paraphrase, I basically admitted that although I don’t particularly enjoy eReaders, they are here to stay and it is better to embrace them than complain about them). However, as the discussion in our class yet again centered on the issue, I feel as though I have to pick up on the topic once more and hopefully for the last time.

Rather than simply debating over whether or not eBooks are good or bad or whether libraries should embrace them or reject them, I prefer to talk about the idea that Professor Lankes hinted at in his presentation at the Virtual Summit on eBooks and further discussed with us in class last week. In the Virtual Summit, Professor Lankes talked about the concept of reading as a social act, and not a completely private act of conceptual decoding. He further suggested that eBooks should reflect this social aspect of reading by becoming more like the popular social networking tools we all seem to be obsessed with, like Facebook and Twitter. The example that we discussed in class went something like this: While reading Austen’s Pride and Prejudice on your eBook, occasionally other things pop up on your screen, like Amazon’s “Other people who like Pride and Prejudice also like Sense and Sensibility” or, while reading Pride and Prejudice on your eBook, the same eReading machine allows you to tweet to your friends, “Hilarious! I just read the part where Mr. Collins fumblingly proposes to Elizabeth!”

There were all sorts of arguments in class against this sort of thing, i.e., “I don’t want things to pop up at me while I’m reading. It would be so distracting!” I agree that social networking on my eReader would in fact be quite distracting. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people who can multitask and do many other things while reading. If I am not in a completely silent atmosphere, I literally cannot focus on the text in front of me (as a side note, I actually think I might have a type of learning disability, but I’ve never been officially diagnosed with anything). I can’t even enjoy reading a book at a coffee shop, so being bombarded by tweets and Facebook updates while reading would be a terrible thing for someone like me. I would never be able to read anything in its entirety again! If you believe in Schwartz’s theory of the Paradox of Choice, it would also follow that my not-ever-reading-anything-all-the-way-through would also lead to a personal dissatisfaction and would have a negative effect on my psyche.

Despite the effects it will have on my psyche, I do think that social networking applications are quite possibly the future of eBooks and that I’m going to have to deal with it when it comes along. However, if such applications are indeed the future, doesn’t it also make sense that this hypothetical eReader will also have a button or switch to turn off all those distractions, too? I know that there are other people in the world that are easily distracted like me, so it seems as though the inclusion of the ‘off’ button will be just as likely as those other developments. Basically, my message to everyone is: trust in the power of the ‘off’ button and you can deal with any of these new trends that come along.

Here's a link to Schwartz's TED talk on the Paradox of Choice: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

Intellectual Freedom and Twilight

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about intellectual freedom and the role that libraries play in providing that right. This week, September 25-October 2, is national Banned Books Week. The annual event was started in the US in 1982 in response to a number of challenges against books held in libraries, bookstores, and schools. While many books contain material that may appear violent, sexist, or racist to some, it is the obligation of libraries to include these books in their collections so as not to violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights. I’m specifically referring to the freedom of speech part of the First Amendment, or in this case, freedom of the written word. Applied on an international level, removing these books from libraries would violate Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) established by the United Nations in 1948. Article 19 states that:

 “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

As we’ve been discussing in my International Librarianship class, many countries that are active participants in the UN do not uphold the rights established in the UDHR for their citizens. China and Cuba would be a few examples of such countries. However, in the United States we do provide these human rights for everyone. Because every person in the US has the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media,” we will not remove To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye from our libraries. We will not even remove more recent items from the banned books list, such as And Tango Makes Three for its homosexual penguins (!?) or the Twilight series, despite the opinion of this blogger that Stephenie Meyer is a terrible writer and should consider a career change. You see, even though I greatly dislike the writing style of Stephenie Meyer, as a librarian I would still include her books in my collection and would not pass judgment on those who choose to read her. Who am I to tell you not to read Twilight? Be an independent thinker and make the choice for yourself. That’s what intellectual freedom is all about!

For more information on Banned Books Week and the list of banned books, click here or visit ALA’s page about the issue here. I retrieved the quote of Article 19 from Wikipedia.