This post was mentioned on Twitter by wawoodworth: Blogged: Regarding “Nothing is the Future”. (Response post to Academic Librarian post) http://bit.ly/dDkkvl #librarian #future…

The last focus group report I read for my system (circa 2007) talked about what different groups of patrons thought of the library. (I wish I could find the report for the purposes of this post, but I think the desk pixies made it into bedding.) While it was informative to get opinions and examine requests of patrons, it did not ask the groups to place priorities on them. I think there is a lot of contextual vacuum that exists in our basic patron surveys. We ask people what they like or want, but we don’t ask the important follow-up of how much they want it. In other words, sure, they wanted the library to have or do things, but there was no mention of the importance or level of desire to them.

I guess the real question is, what do we do to resolve this?

But still, it misses something and, at the risk of being called a snob, a futurist and a hack, it needs saying.

Snob: Libraries exist in part to educate people. Often that means helping them to learn things they know they don’t know—to provide answers to their questions. But libraries also exist to help patrons to know things they don’t know they don’t know—to help them frame better questions, and expand the sort of questions they’re asking.

Futurist: Giving your patrons what they want is reactive. You’ve also got to be looking at what they will want. Sometimes that’s just being ahead of the curve. Sometimes it means ignoring what your patrons want, because it’s a blind alley.

A humorous thought: Without library obstructionists, libraries could change when it was needed, and not need library futurists to tell them what was coming!

Hack: Libraries don’t exist to perpetuate jobs for librarians. But there’s value in perpetuating libraries even so. We need library futurists to tell us when the future is working against libraries. So, for example, patrons want ebooks, but current ebook pricing and distribution models for libraries are a serious “down elevator” for libraries and for library values like privacy and free speech. If libraries don’t stand up for something better—even if that means refusing to give patrons ebooks now—they’re going to find themselves backed into a corner. And you can’t give your patrons what they want if you’re in a corner. Hmm.

In sum, don’t give your patrons what they want. Do a little bit better!

I do read your blog over on LJ as it helps to see commentary from the academic library field. (And I enjoyed your presentations at Pres4Lib2009, so I tend to keep track of you and others who presented that day.) In re-reading your post to freshen my memory, it seems to me to be an affirmation of convergent evolution of thought; we come to the same sorts of conclusion somewhat independent of each other.

Now, whether this fuels the so-called echo chamber of online library thought, that’s another story. However, I’m more interested in what it will take to get the ideas implemented. We are certainly a people business and that business thrives on relationships: personal, political, community, and cause. I don’t think we’ve lost that focus at the individual level, but our online commentary has made it seem that we have.

It’s as if we have our own wonder wheel (much like the Google visual search option), but at times, people get focused on the parts on the outside rather than what lays in the center.

In all seriousness, I’d also like to point out that libraries should not be completely beholden to all mediums. We have been weeding out our cassette collection due to poor circulation (even though I will see patrons with walkmans; yes, really). If you think about it from the large scale, cars are no longer being built with cassette players and music stores have (in large, save for some small specialty or mom ‘n pop) dropped cassettes from their inventories. There is a inflection point where the medium doesn’t exhibit enough value for its continued support and use.