I’m motivated to post by an article in this month’s Incite, the ALIA news magazine (I can’t link to the article, though, because it’s not included on the net). The title was “What do an Apple store and a library have in common?” Interesting that the Future of Public Libraries conference should have the architect of the Apple stores speaking. Do we have something to learn from him? It’s a direction that excites me.
Probably because I went into librarianship as an introvert, expecting to work in a back room. Life in a one-person library soon put a stop to that and I learnt very quickly that I had to put personality into the job.
This also meant that I watched with interest the discussion on LMNet (a discussion list for American teacher-librarians), recently, about the personality required in librarians by employers, and whether librarians should be “bubbly.”
Are you a “bubbly librarian?
While the concept was dismissed, more because of the word itself, I think, the general consensus was that teachers and teacher-librarians need to be performers. And I remember feeling somewhat the same as I learnt to run that one-person library.
And I think that the attitudes of the profession have been changing as mine have.
We are coming out of the back room; as individuals and a profession. And we can learn, in the process, from other disciplines – marketing and retail … including Apple stores … “making places that are magic to be in, places where people love to be”
… “make learning fun and irresistible, …holding classes … help to enhance projects”.
Hmm, this is changing direction!
and I think that what we have in common is a desire to revolutionise, to go beyond what always worked once.
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September 26, 2006 at 08:15
I smiled when I saw that article about libraries and Apple store, because I’ve often thought the same thing. I’ve visited Apple stores in the US and Japan many times. They are centrally located, (until recently) had no restriction on Internet which is great when travelling, and run hundreds of free classes. One never feels pressured to actually, god forbid, buy anything there. And they are always full of people.
(BTW full issues of inCite are online as a one-file PDF, but for members only)