Book-more libraries and book-less libraries #ist511

First of all, I am a big supporter of all the bookless libraries (one reason is that, I think different forms of libraries can help us better realize the nature of LIBRARY). There has been a number of examples and a lot of articles to talk about them in the last decade. In short, this movement (if you like) can be traced back to Fiedler Engineering Library in Kansas State University which was opened in 2000 (which is hard to believe, 2000?!). In 2010, this movement became famous because Stanford University's Frederick Emmons Terman Engineering Library got rid of most of its physical resources. After that, Applied Engineering and Technology Library in UTSA adopted this bookless model in a more radical way, which was called "the first completely bookless library on a university or college campus" (source: Library Journal). Another really famous example outside traditional settings is Khan Academy.

There are a number of things to be noted:

1. Most of the bookless libraries are college libraries.
2. Most of the bookless libraries are natural science or applied science libraries.
3. Only a few of these examples are truly libraries with no physical resources at all; most of them just remove most of the physical resources.

First of all, these bookless libraries are highly contextual. I assume that college students of natural science or applied science have a less reliance upon physical resources. Their researching processes are covered by databases and eBooks neatly.

Second, even as a radicalist in this term, I can think of how much objection the libraries will face then they make such a decision (I heard a lot of stories about all the objections Bird Library was suffered from when it decided to move away some of its physical resources -- BTW, when I first visited Bird Library this summer, my first impression was, why there were so many books!).

Library members love books. Again, in OCLC's "Library Perception 2010" report, after the economic failure, more American people connect public libraries with books. But on the other hand, people also love spaces. Prioritizing strategies in the local context are so important here. But all these things remind me of the tension between "meeting users' needs" and "creating new needs". As shown by iPhone and many other examples, users' needs are created. In most of the cases, users don't know what they need (they just know what they are using and how they like it, based on Atlas). So listening to the users is a dilemma. How do we take what we hear from the library members?

Let's put this topic in the back burner first. Talking about the public perceptions of libraries, in China, libraries are even more strongly tied with books. Maybe it's because "图书馆" (the Chinese word of "library") has "图书" ("book" in Chinese) in it. The connection of libraries and books in the language is so straightforward makes it extremely hard to change public's opinions about what a library is. 

Well, the previous statement may not be totally true. First, maybe Chinese librarians have not worked hard to change public's perceptions. A lot of librarians themselves believe that librarians are ONLY about books. Second, sometimes, Chinese people don't know what a library is; many of they cannot even distinguish between a bookstore and a library. In short, they don't give libraries a shit. Third, acquiring how many books each year is still one of the most important factor to assess a library and library director in China (yes, we have a national library assessment system).

In a word, most of the Chinese libraries are still going toward "book-more".

There was a very interesting news several years ago that, in order to have more spaces in the library, Cornell University Library decided to get rid of some repetitive collections, so they sold these books to Tsinghua University Library in Beijing (which is one of the best academic library in China). In the library I used to work, what we can hear every year is that, we spend how much money to buy how many books this year, how many percent more than last year.

To some extent, it's understandable that collection is still the number one issue in most of the Chinese libraries. First of all, as mentioned above, it's still the mindset of the public and some of the librarians and library directors that libraries are only about books. Second, at least in public libraries, people are still complaining there are not enough books to borrow. There are still strong needs for books In China; even in the biggest cities like Beijing, the lack of a functioning community library system makes a few central library working really hard but still cannot meet the most citizen's reading needs. There is hardly a robust eBook ecosystem in China, so relying on physical books is the reasonable choice. The widely adoption of book ATM machines in some major Chinese cities is one of the results of this environment.

But there is also another side of the story. Like what was mentioned in the last post, there is a strong need in the public for library spaces rather than just resources and services, especially in academic libraries. So it's hard for me to understand why Tsinghua University decided to buy all these books from Cornell. Even on the general level, more and more academic and even public libraries find it hard to have enough space to restore all the physical resources in recent years, like what has been happening in the US. Some libraries (like Peking University Library and many others) already have their off-campus repository facilities.

The situations on the eBooks market are becoming better, with some big online retailers and social media platforms devoting themselves to digital publishing and a number of public libraries joining this wave. Moreover, more and more libraries, public and academic, are using tablets and eBook readers as facilitator to learning, with pre-loaded digital resources offered by some content vendors.

With all these developments going on, it's expected that the "library-book" mindset among librarians will change in the future. However, more efforts should be put to change public's opinion about libraries. Librarians cannot wait for the public opinion to change; they should do something to make it change. The easiest answer here is to prepare for enough alternatives to physical books, and communicate our values to the public. It's not a short and easy process. Conversation is always endless.

Occupying Seats in Chinese Libraries #ist511

One topic one can read frequently in the professional literature as well as the news reports about Chinese libraries is the "occupying seats" issue. It happens mainly in college libraries: too many students need to use academic libraries as a space for learning compared with the libraries' capacities. In public libraries too, especially in the vacations, you can see so many students waiting for entering a seat in the library's learning space. I cannot say that the large number of population is the only reason here, but obviously, it is one of the issues that makes Chinese librarianship unique. (So I am kind of curious about how libraries in India are dealing with these issues, if there is any.)

This phenomenon, by the way, is one of the best counterarguments against "Chinese people don't use libraries". They do! They have a need for libraries, though they may not need as much of some services and resources offered by the libraries and expected by the librarians. There seems to be a strong need for library space in such cases. (On the other hand, unfortunately, the focuses of most of the Chinese libraries, public or academic, are still resources or even physical books. I will talk about this issue in the next post.)

On the other hand, a lot of students who get a seat in the library just don't study there immediately. They try to use some ways to take this seat and come back later. This behavior makes the whole situation worse.

You can see a lot of these amusing pictures online:

(One student used her coat to occupy the seat. Photo from: http://www.guokr.com/post/82085/)

(This time, it's a toy bear.)

(The queue of students waiting for entering the library very early in the morning, which is so not uncommon in China. Photo from: http://www.hinews.cn/news/system/2012/09/03/014900309.shtml)

There are a number of solutions to this problem, one of which is that, some academic libraries in China locks all the learning spaces, and they sell the seats to the students! This policy, as simple as it is, was severely criticized by some Chinese librarians.

Recently, Beijing Normal University Library (I got my undergraduate degree there) had a new policy (in Chinese) that, during certain hours in a day, everyone who wants to get a seat in the library must register in a machine in advance. If they leave the library, they need to log-off in the machine too. And if one is found to break the rule for three times, he/she will be deprived of the right to get a seat in the library for 30 days.

It doesn't sound like a very humanized policy because of the punishment part. However, I don't think this policy is totally unacceptable. It's interesting to know that some other libraries around the world are using this device too (like this Korean library). What makes me feel better about this policy is that, several days ago, the library tweeted a message in Weibo (again, Chinese version of Twitter) that public opinions about this seat management system are welcome.

Besides good management, at least in some cases, the problem in the library is only a part of the bigger issue on the campus. For example, in some universities, all the classrooms are forbidden to be used for anything other than classes. In such cases, it's inevitable that the library is overly crowded. The point is that, rather than just taking care of themselves, libraries under such a condition should try to do something to fix the bigger problem too (as early as possible).

So again, libraries should have conversations with all the stakeholders in this case. They should talk with universities to open all the available learning spaces on the campus. They should also talk with the students about the management measures and maybe about how they can find a space to learn more easily. For public libraries, one of the solutions is to establish a community library system, which also involves conversation, though a much more complex one.

Chinese librarianship is different with US librarianship on many big and subtle aspects. (for example, it may be hard to image the lack of space issue in the US libraries) However, even so, some basic principles, like conversation, can be applicable in China to at least ease the problem.