Good evening everyone and it gives me enormous pleasure to welcome you all
to the State Library of Western Australia tonight for the opening of Disrupted –
a Festival of Ideas.
I too wish to acknowledge the Noongar people, the traditional owners of the
land on which we meet tonight and pay my respects to their elders past and
present. I am very pleased that tonight we will be able to truly share in the
culture of the traditional owners - with Gina and Guy sharing with us Noongar
songs!
Thank you also to Barry who always uplifts me and makes me feel truly
welcome to this country.
2014 marks the 125th anniversary of the State Library of Western Australia
which began as the Victoria Public Library in 1889. So it’s appropriate for me
to take a few minutes of your time while I reflect on the future of libraries.
Sitting here at the State Library of WA you might ask why we even need to
contemplate the future of libraries – SLWA is a strong, vibrant and welcoming
place which is engaging with the community and challenging the traditional
boundaries of what it means to be a library. This weekend’s festival of ideas is
an example of how we are challenging the boundaries – but I will return to this
later.
The media and literature contains plenty of discussion and speculation as to
the future of libraries with many predicting the demise of libraries. If you
google the phrase you will get more than 224 million results – yes its true,
librarians use google all the time and by the way, the fact there are more than
224 million results in itself demonstrates exactly why we need librarians to
help navigate the sea of irrelevant and useless content and identify those that
are really useful!
The last 30 years have seen the rapid growth in technology and its availability
and this has both challenged and enhanced libraries. For libraries a particular
challenge has been the rapid rise of information, stories and knowledge
available so readily via the internet and this is perhaps where the speculation
about the future of libraries originates – who would use a library when
everything you need is available on the internet? I’ve have had that question
myself from Treasury analysts!
And to some extent there is evidence of the demise of libraries – corporate
and government libraries are certainly under pressure and many are closing in
the context of a constrained financial environment. School libraries are
another casualty and their critical role in supporting literacy and reading
development overlooked by principals and policy makers under pressure to
support a vast array of programs.
But despite this, I am full of optimism and confidence about the future of
libraries and their fundamental place in a civil society.
Libraries have always been a place of stories, ideas, knowledge and
information. Libraries have always allowed people to share and discover new
stories, to turn information into knowledge which in turn underpins the
creation of new knowledge and feeds new ideas, innovation and creativity.
Ideas, information and knowledge transform as society changes and libraries
have always reflected and been part of that evolution. Libraries anchor us in
our own culture and enable us to share and understand other cultures.
Libraries have long been viewed as a trusted source of information and this
continues today. A book on a library shelf somehow seems to gain a more
important status – at least for a while.
From the very beginning of libraries, which are usually traced back to
collections of clay tablets from 2000 BC in what we know today as Syria and
Iraq, libraries have recorded, shared and valued stories, ideas, knowledge and
information.
Whilst our view of a library is often framed in the context of written language
and the resultant physical book, I think in this discussion it’s important not to
ignore oral cultures and the way in which their stories, knowledge and ideas
were recorded, preserved and made accessible. I would argue that these
cultures, including Australian aboriginal culture, have always had their own
libraries, not in the traditional book or written word sense – instead the
stories, knowledge, ideas and information were stored in the memory of
people, painted on cave walls or associated with secret and sacred objects.
Through song and images, people shared ideas, information, knowledge and
stories that were passed from generation to generation transformed and built
upon along with the society. Sadly that chain has been broken in too many
traditional cultures.
Whilst it might be a simplistic view, one could consider that we are talking
about different containers in which the knowledge, information, ideas and
stories were recorded, stored, preserved and shared.
Through a lens of the written word, libraries have often been viewed as
‘temples of the book’ – a hallowed place. Many of the great libraries of the
world, built their collections during a time of information scarcity – books were
expensive, difficult to get and created by a select few. That has changed
dramatically and we live in a world of information overload where more
information is available than we can attempt to consume and everyone can be
a creator or author.
Whilst we collect books, libraries collect and make available much more than
books. Of course the term library is very generic and there are different sorts
of libraries collecting different containers of knowledge and information – from
core sample libraries which collect, store and preserve geological samples, to
film libraries. There is also the living library concept which emerged in
Denmark in the 1990’s – where library users in the safety of the library can
‘borrow a person’ as a living book and talk to them, to hear their story, to
share and exchange ideas. Although perhaps this is not such a recent idea
after all but perhaps this is actually borrowed from oral cultures?
In referring to books as containers I do want to stress however that I am not
trivialising the physical book. Far from it - the book is an amazing and long
surviving piece of technology. Ignoring the content for a second, the book itself
can evoke emotional and romantic responses on its own through touch, smell
and sight –E-books or reading on your computer still have a long way to go to
get anywhere close, but then they offer different possibilities of combining
text, image, sound and reader interaction to tell a story which a physical book
could not come close to. Then there is the content that can entertain,
challenge and inform, make us laugh or cry, angry or curious and a range of
other emotions. No wonder the book is valued.
The destruction of physical books always generates an emotional response –
whether it occurs as a result of political or religious intervention, sensible
curation by libraries – just consider how difficult it can be to part with the
books on your own shelves at home.
Whilst the book is important to libraries, the future of libraries is not linked
exclusively to the future of the physical book as we know it.
You may be surprised to know that despite ‘everything being available on the
internet’ libraries – particularly those in the public sphere - have never been
busier and visits to libraries continue to grow across Australia and globally. The
State Library is the most used cultural institution in WA and one of the busiest
public buildings in Perth. 1.4million people visited this facility last financial year
and nearly 900,000 visited our web site or used our online services from across
the world – this participation is entirely voluntary.
But, people are using libraries, including this one, for different purposes and
engage in very different ways from say even 20 years ago. They are no longer
just for scholars or ‘real researchers’ but vibrant, open and welcoming
community spaces. The shh element has well and truly gone and in fact one of
our challenges today is to balance the need for quiet space with the busy
active part of the library.
Libraries are considered safe, neutral spaces – where ideas can be explored in
private or together with others, where knowledge is freely available to those
that seek it. We reject censorship and welcome and encourage a range of
views. We do not ask anyone why they want to use the library ̶ people can be
entirely anonymous and don’t need permission or even identification to use
our services. No money needs to change hands to participate or use our
services. Libraries reduce social and cultural isolation.
People can come and go as they wish, staying for as long as they want. People
are free to learn at their own pace and explore their own interests and do not
need to be connected or engaged in the formal education system to learn and
grow. My colleague from SLQ describes libraries as ‘parks for the mind’. There
are few spaces like libraries left in our society.
Ideas, knowledge, information and stories are still at the heart of libraries – but
what has changed is how these are collected, stored and shared.
The collections of libraries mirror society – they reflect the materials,
technologies and communication methods. In 1889 when the State Library first
opened our collections were all in the written paper based form.
As well as books, the State Library’s collections include films – both digital and
traditional formats, oral histories, ephemeral material such as ‘how to vote
cards, posters, restaurant menus, to samples of junk mail, microfilms and
microfiche, maps, badges, posters, clothing, paintings, web sites, photos – both
print and digital, e-books and publications that we call born digital because
they have never existed in a print or physical form. Each of these has a story to
tell, or information to share about our society and culture. For SLWA we
increasingly focus on unique West Australian material – capturing and
preserving the output of our society and culture. No one else in the world has
this role – it is unique and it is vitally important.
Our colleagues at the Library of Congress have the challenge of collecting
Twitter and the National Library collects a snap shot of the .au internet domain
regularly for very long term preservation purposes and stores it in an
inaccessible dark archive because copyright law prevents it from being made
accessible in the same way that the Library can make available print
publications.
One of the biggest opportunities created by technology for libraries has been
the ability to share our physical collections through digitisation enabling us to
share them, not just with our local community, but making them available
globally 24 x 7, 52 weeks of the year, from work, at home or at school. In the
WA context, for the first time we can provide true equity of access to those
living in regional areas.
Libraries continue to invest whatever resources they can muster to digitising
and making available our rich and unique collections. Our collections are vast,
the appetite for this content is enormous and growing but our resources are
limited.
The use of our collections, particularly those that have been digitised, is also
changing with technology enabling content to be used and reused. Libraries
support the creation of new knowledge, ideas and the creation of new stories.
Whilst this has always been the case, the role of the library has changed.
We no longer wait for researchers and innovators to come to us, we are
opening up our collections to the world enabling and encouraging use and
reuse and engaging the community in the work of describing and managing our
collections. The unique, public domain material in our collections, that is free
of copyright restrictions, is our priority for digitisation - our low hanging fruit.
But our collections are also full of material for which copyright restrictions still
exist and the ideas, knowledge and stories they contain remain bound in their
physical containers. This remains a challenge for libraries and in this digital
world increasingly does not meet community expectations.
Another marked change has been the engagement of libraries with creators in
the content creation process. No longer are we passive actors in the process
but seek to actively engage with the creators to collect the new content they
create and add it to our collections. We are actively engaging the community
in our content – the National Library’s Australian Newspapers Online via the
internationally recognised Trove service is an excellent example of community
engagement and contribution to content – today alone more than 134,000
corrections were made by members of the public to the digitised newspaper
content. Our Storyline initiative which is repatriating material back to
aboriginal communities in digital form engages with communities as they add
and correct content and knowledge to the collections which is then brought
back into the State Library for long term preservation.
Libraries have always had a role in the education of the community ̶ the public
library and adult education have been closely linked since the 1800’s. Today,
libraries across the world are facilitating access to technology and supporting
skill development – particularly for those that are marginalised or outside of
formal education. Many people first accessed the internet through their public
library or learned how to search the web or send emails at their library.
Libraries provide maker spaces which provide access to new and emerging
technologies such as 3D printing or old technologies such as sewing machines.
One of the biggest societal shifts has been in the way we communicate and
interact with each other. Technology has changed this dramatically – the
internet and social media have fundamentally changed our sources of
information, our ability to communicate with each other and our role in
creating content and sharing it with others.
As mentioned earlier, we can all be creators and it is now so easy to share our
creations with others through social media and the internet. Libraries will
increasingly be part of that process – collecting, preserving, curating and
making accessible new content created from old content – just as we have
always done but in different media and through different methods.
Now, to return to Disrupted and our inaugural Festival of Ideas. I have had
people ask me why the State Library would be developing as a key program a
festival of ideas. For me the answer is simple – libraries have always been
about the sharing of knowledge, ideas and information. On the floors above us
there are millions of stories and ideas, lots of information and knowledge - but
mostly they are in traditionally book or at least printed format, waiting
passively for people to engage with them.
For me, Disrupted is a logical extension of what we do – making ideas and
stories, knowledge and information accessible to people but in a different way
so they can learn, be entertained and challenged, to form new ideas and
knowledge or create something new. We are simply taking a tiny number of
ideas out of the books and together with their creators turning them into a
living library, using oral traditions to explore ideas, tell and share stories. And,
luckily of course many of the speakers are also authors in the traditional sense
and you can purchase lots of books to further the experience.
Libraries have continued to evolve alongside society, utilising technologies of
the time – whether that be clay for tablets or tablets as we know them today.
Our collections have always reflected society and society has always been
reflected in our collections and that is still fundamentally true today.
I have every reason to be optimistic that Libraries will not only survive for
centuries to come – they will most certainly change in physical form and the
way in which they engage with their communities will change in ways that I
cannot begin to predict.
The State Library of WA continues to embrace the future, responding and
adapting to the needs of our community. What the next 125 years will bring is
completely unknown but I am absolutely confident that this library will
celebrate its 250th birthday still a strong and vibrant institution.