Relating: Are Libraries Needed?

• As a strong and research-centered Head of School, I love my local and university libraries. They are amazing places that are client-centered. The atmosphere, resources, and learning/personal services make them vital as well as socially important centers. As a result, I am asking, what purpose does a high school library have for its clients? Can libraries change from warehouses to intellectual centers? Can libraries facilitate learning? I am not alone in my questions!
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• In an Educational Leadership article, Minnesota media/technology director Doug Johnson asks whether school libraries are necessary when students have vast amounts of information at their fingertips via smartphones, tablets, and computers. Absolutely, says Johnson, if libraries re-purpose themselves to serve three vital functions:

A social-learning commons The popularity of coffee shops, shopping malls, and teen centers demonstrates peoples desire to meet and learn in a physical environment. Libraries need to be a high-touch environment in a high-touch world, says Johnson, with comfortable seating, flexible furniture arrangements, and attention to aesthetics in lighting and colors [that] make the library a place where students and staff want to be. Libraries should be used for meetings, research, tutoring, and specialized student services.

Production and presentation The library should be less a grocery store where people get stuff than a kitchen where people make stuff, says Johnson. Students should have access to computers with lots of memory, robust processing speed, and software for music and video production and photo-editing, as well as presentation formats like interactive whiteboards and audience response systems.

Teaching spaces The librarys resources have changed, he says, but not its mission: teaching people to effectively access information to meet their needs. The emphasis has shifted from teaching learners how to find and organize information to teaching them how to evaluate and use information. The librarian is key to teaching students these skills in large-group, small-group, and individual formats.

Libraries need a re-purposing to be relevant today as a new social and intellectual center!