As for “the entertainment in question is getting dumber, more disruptive…” sounds a teeny bit subjective. Libraries can have books for book people and games for game people. They don’t seem mutually exclusive to me.

In the end there will always be librarians whow want to narrow the mission of the library, and those who want to broaden the mission of the library. The conversation continues…

To the AL–thank you for posting this. It’s very refreshing after taking a tour of the eyeroll-inducing LISNews site, whose uncritical approach to New Modern “Librarianship” grows increasingly tiresome.

I can’t quite make out how a classification system that’s been in use for 130 years and is currently used in over 200,000 libraries in more than 135 countries can be “arcane.”

What that usually really means is “We didn’t take Cataloging I, or if we did, we didn’t pay attention, and now we’re embarrassed that we don’t understand two of the underlying concepts of librarianship: classification and organization of materials. Because of our laziness and ignorance, the rest of the world should suffer.” Alas, these are the people deciding the future of librarianship, because their “provocative” statements are what garners headlines and stage-time at conferences.

I don’t think that the libraries you are interning in are unique.

RE: “…maybe libraries should be combined with Community Centers, and be called “Library and Community Center.” ”

Actually…
*The Carnegie Library of Braddock, the first Carnegie Library in the United States, included a bathhouse and billiard tables.
*The Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny (USA CL #2) included a theater.
*The Carnegie Library of Homestead (USA CL #3) included a music hall and an athletic wing, including a swimming pool. The music hall also had a concert grand piano and an organ. (The piano is still in use. The organ is apparently not operational at the moment.)
*The Carnegie Free Library of Carnegie, PA also included a music hall, as well as a reception hall and studios.
*The Carnegie Free Library of Connellsville, PA included an auditorium on its second floor.
*The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (aka CLP Main, in the Oakland neighborhood, near Pitt and CMU) is in a complex including a music hall and lecture hall.

My word…what did Andy Carnegie have against books? Literacy? Seriousness? Why did he listen to everyone who wanted to change libraries? Why did he allow – even encourage – libraries to offer entertainment as well as information?

In case you missed it, this was sarcasm. Mr. Carnegie is often lionized for his strong backing for the construction of public libraries in the United States, Scotland, and elsewhere around the world. And yet – and yet – he was totally cool with them doing things other than keeping and reading books. I mean…a swimming pool, for crying out loud. Would he object to “Guitar Hero?” Would he demand that they be places of silence and seriousness at all times? Based on what I’m finding…no. No, he would not. Carnegie saw his libraries not just as a means for people to educate themselves or their children, but as a way for people to get together and strengthen their communities. And hell, he was OK with people have a little fun, too. So can we please stop with the “OMG! CDs! DVDs! Video games! No!” stuff? Why can’t we do both?

You ask some very broad questions to which there are no clear answers. I will try and summarize the background knowledge that you seem to be requesting.

Basically, a long, long time ago, all libraries were about books and reading and information. When a person asked a reference question, we had to look up the answer in Facts-on-File or the OED or some other now digitized document. Sometime in the 1990′s it became easier and faster to start using computers for this same information. Pretty soon, it was feared by many that computers would certainly cause the downfall of libraries as we know them. Librarians panicked. You could read article after article as to how we were obsolete as a profession.

As a result, librarians worked hard to find their purpose in a new world where everyone, at least the ones paying us, told us we needed to provide computers, movies, and video games. This would save us (or so we were told) and quite a few librarians drank the Kool-Aid. They would say “Look here! My Super Smash Brothers Competition brought in 50 teenagers who have never stepped foot in a library!”. Upper management would look at the foot count and the statistics and privately think that this makes the library look good (some of these people are elected after all).

And so, we now keep going towards this goal of technology assimilation without really thinking about the consequences. It’s quite conceivable we may wake up in a few years to our fully enhanced librarian cyborg bodies, complete with a multimedia unit and a direct link to the Internet so that we can up-date our library’s Facebook page while we are out in the stacks shelving books.

Not that we’re bitter or anything.

As a second-year MLIS student who wants to be a public youth librarian, my classes and readings don’t support this “new” library. We certainly talk about youth and technology, and we even talk about recreational programming, but it is all still very book and information-oriented. As my program is through one of the major research universities, and the faculty is well-respected in their fields, I haven’t been too worried about the quality of my education, but if this is what public libraries are looking for, my fellow students and I are unprepared. All we know how to do is provide developmentally-appropriate literacy services (that are fun, too!), reference, and community outreach and support through our books and information services. This formula seems to work well for the three major systems we all intern at, but maybe us Californians are out of the loop.