The Dewey Decimal System is so 1950s, but many public libraries — free internet access notwithstanding — are still stuck in that time warp. But as the Boston Globe’s Catherine Elton reports, some of them are trying to change their image and become more like the bookstores they compete with:
“There is tremendous competition, and people have options that didn’t used to exist,” says Karen Hyman, a librarian who is teaching a 12-step course on customer-centered libraries at the Public Library Assocation’s 11th National Conference in Boston this week. “Libraries have to keep working to be relevant. Are we copying Barnes and Noble and grocery stores? Yeah. Retail is a specialty and a profession, and it’s not ours, but we can learn from people in retail.”
The 12,000 librarians, educators, publishers, and authors who have come to learn the cutting edge in the field this year can attend seminars on video games and romance novels.
Boston’s public libraries are trying to keep pace so much that they’ll make some bestsellers available for borrowing the day they hit bookstores, and soon be the first library in the country to offer downloadable videos. This definitely ain’t your grandma’s library…