Book: A Futurist's Manifesto

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The End of the Public Library (As We Knew It)? (Eli Neiburger, Ann Arbour District Library)

Eli Neiburger is Associate Director for IT & Production at the Ann Arbor District Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He’s the author of GAMERS… IN THE LIBRARY?!, published in 2007 by ALA Editions, and has written and presented extensively about libraries, content, and the Web. Find him on Twitter, he’s @ulotrichous.

The media explosion of the 20th century is imploding. As the text publishing industry is inevitably transformed by the Internet and left smoldering in a changed world, libraries—most particularly public libraries—are feeling the poke of a very sharp stick, with no carrot in sight. Created to store and organize the information of their communities, public libraries capitalized on the mass-market media explosion of the 20th century to aggregate and circulate commercial (and predominantly recreational) prefilled content containers. It was an irresistible opportunity to build new, unique value, and it worked so well that a majority of users think of their public libraries predominantly as a prepaid, only slightly inconvenient way to get temporary access to entertainment-filled containers.

The shakeouts of the digital text market have barely begun, but the players and battle lines are well-established. Following its traditional publishing plans, Big Text has a lot of risk floating out there, with distressingly few levers or knobs available to manage that risk. And there goes ...