Libraries struggle to remain relevant in digital era

Fifteen minutes before the doors open, Josh Wolf briefly runs through the script with a coworker and discusses tactics for holding the children’s attention.

“I’m going to roll around on the floor and goof around,” he tells her.

“Great,” she says. “I’ll probably trip on my dress and fall down.”

Wolf is the children’s services manager at the Monroe County Public Library. During that night’s event, a program celebrating the popular Olivia series, he was dressed as Olivia the Pig.  

“Oh man, I’m going to be a 6-foot-tall pig,” Wolf says as he glances at a giant pink suit laid out backstage. “It’s really hard to see and hear when I’ve got this head on. I better run to the restroom before I put this on.”

He dashes away.

There are 9,225 libraries and 48,015 paid librarians who work in public libraries in the United States, according to the American Library Association. In a world where technology is constantly changing the ways we gather information, these librarians strive to remain relevant.

In MCPL, the librarians of the children’s department struggle to adapt. They see people reach for their Kindles instead of paperbacks. They worry about books becoming obsolete in the future.

To fight back, they have a sizeable DVD collection. They offer free music and eBook downloads. They have self-check-out machines stationed throughout the library. They sponsor children’s events and programs where they dress as 6-foot-tall pigs. They have meetings in which they discuss the future and determine what changes they should make accordingly.

And they’re always there to help — to answer every question with a smile, to share their love for books with others.

They are currently experiencing a $600,000 budget shortfall and they are applying for a bond from the Monroe County Council. If it is not approved, they will have to cut services and programs.

But they’ll do anything to remain relevant to kids — the next
generation of potential readers.

* * *

It’s a busy day at the MCPL. The first floor is home to the children’s department. Pat Firenze, library assistant, stares at a computer screen at the circulation desk.

A little boy approaches her cautiously, one hand firmly clutching his mother’s.

“Do you know the book with the owls?”

He gives a brief summary of the plot.

“I think I do,” Firenze says. “Are you talking about ‘Owl City?’”

The boy gasps, delighted.

“I think that’s the one,” he says.

“Let me just look it up and find where it is,” Firenze says.

She grasps the mouse and pulls up the Internet. Her fingers fly over the keyboard, pounding each key with precision. After a few seconds, she beckons the boy to follow.

“I’ve got it,” she tells him.

He smiles up at her. All his former caution lost, he goes with her. In just a few minutes, he has the coveted book in his arms.

“What do you say?” his mother asks.

“Thank you,” the boy tells Firenze before dragging his mother away to the check-out machine.

Firenze chuckles.

“I love kids, and I love books. I love to read,” she says. “I have a job that allows me to combine those things. I don’t know how it could get any better than this.”

Firenze has been working in MCPL’s children’s department for 39 years.

“There have been a lot of changes here over the years,” she says. “So much has happened.”

The building has doubled in size, computers were added and books on tape were introduced — followed by CDs, DVDs, eBooks and more.

Back at her desk, Firenze closes the browser and thinks back to the first time she used the web more than 15 years ago.

“Wow, that was so long ago,” she says.

The computers then were much more cumbersome than the monitors there are today. Firenze learned to use the computer to check in and check out books, as well as search for titles and authors.

She had to learn how to use a mouse.

“It was terrifying. It was a challenge,” she says. “Kids today have grown up with it, so they’re really comfortable using it. But for me, I remember it took a lot of concentration.”

That’s no longer a problem for her. She navigates through the different search engines with ease.

“It’s like second nature now. I can’t imagine not using it,” she says.

She had to learn how to use email and other forms of social media as well. Recently, she had to learn how to check out books using radio frequency identification.

“I’m always a little bit apprehensive whenever I have to learn to use a new technology, but it usually doesn’t take very long for me to get used to it,” she says.

Nonetheless, she hopes things won’t change much more.

“I’m a paper person,” she says. “I love books, so I hope we don’t go too far away from that.”

She says she would be disappointed if books become obsolete.

“I like everything about a book. I like the smell and the texture of the paper. I can pick it up and read it wherever I am,” she says. “I’m planning on trying a Kindle soon, but I can’t picture myself choosing that and totally giving up books.”

Wolf feels the same way.

“With kids, they’re never going to get over books. There’s something magical about picture books when parents and kids read them together,” he says. “When these kids grow up, they’re going to read picture books with their kids because that’s what their parents did, and that’s what they’re used to.”

He puts a large stack of DVDs on hold for a woman who will be coming by later to pick them up.

“Times have definitely changed. Fifty percent of the materials checked out of the library are audio-visual materials now,” he says.

In a world full of constant technological developments, Wolf says libraries must keep up.

“The biggest danger of a library is becoming irrelevant. I’ve worked at libraries where nothing ever changes, and then when there’s a recession, it closes,” he says.

In order to prevent that from happening here, Wolf says the librarians always think of ways to remain appealing.

“We need to cater to people’s wants. We need to find a new niche that we’re good at,” he says. “Our mission here is to surprise and delight people. We want to defy their expectations.”

That means being ready for any sort of change.

“Remember when the DVDs first came out in the ’80s, and everyone thought they were going to last forever and threw away all their records?” he asks Firenze.

“Oh yes. I remember that. Everyone was so excited,” she says.

“The thing is, they get scratched really easily,” he says. “Soon, there’s going to be something new that takes the place of DVDs. Nothing lasts forever nowadays.”

Wolf is part of the Library Futures Committee, which anticipates future changes. Projects under consideration include the establishment of a media lab, which Wolf says could become a place for teenagers to create web content.

By offering services like this, he says he believes the library and librarians will always remain pertinent.

“Besides, we offer a lot of programs that you can’t get anywhere else,” he says.

Lisa Champelli, children’s services coordinator, says she believes as much as he does in the importance of librarians.

“They’re irreplaceable. Some people get the perception that volunteers can be librarians because they think all we do is put books back on the shelves, but we do so much more than that,” she says. “We have the background knowledge in all types of different books. We can match a child with the right book for them at the right age. We help these kids find information.”

* * *

Music flows from the program room. The lights are dimmed. Dozens of picture books are set up on tables, and a cozy carpet is rolled out on the floor.

In the center of the room is Wolf. As children pile into the room, holding hands with their parents, he begins to juggle.

“I’m just goofing around here until we get started,” he tells them.

The kids shriek with laughter as Wolf drops a ball and bumps his head on a table on his way to retrieve it. He flashes them a sheepish grin.

“You think we should start?” he asks them.

“Yeah, start. Let’s start,” they shout, clapping their hands together.

Wolf tells the dozen kids gathered in the room that because it’s International Education Week, he will be reading them bedtime stories from various different countries.

He pulls out a giant globe and places his finger in the middle of the U.S.
“This is where we are. Now, we’re going to take a little trip around the world,” he tells them. “Let’s go to India.”

He pulls out a picture book. “Caps for Sale.”

As he flips through each page, using different voices for each character and waving his hands about, the kids lean against their parents and listen, their eyes fixed upon
his face.

“This is why I love my job,” he says later. “We just try to find books that make kids happy. We try to find that moment when they forget they’re decoding words on a page and nothing else matters.”