A Vision of the Bookless Library*

I’m no Delphic Oracle, but it’s only a matter of time ‘til (academic) libraries stop buying books. Physical books. Some libraries will cease and desist sooner than others. Medical libraries, for instance, will cut back before Humanities libraries.

But at some point 99% of all book purchases will be electronic. To be read online and on mobile devices – on devices that, I suppose, libraries will start lending out en masse.** The other 1% will comprise rare books and other print curios. To be read in ill lit rooms by people wearing smoking jackets.

When this inevitability inevitably happens, when weeding and shelving-space concerns become a thing of the past, what will the newfangled, ultra-modern library-as-place look like?

First, the print books that currently occupy large portions of libraries will have to be moved to off-site storage facilities or simply discarded. The valuable, useful, or relevant ones will be kept, but the others will be donated to developing countries, resold, or turned into insulation. Shelving will be dismantled. The old-school monograph budget will morph into a buy-on-demand model, because getting books will, of course!, be a nearly instantaneous process (thanks to Google and others for their digitization efforts).

Less shelving will mean more creative space for faculty and students. Individual and group study spaces are a certainty, but these will be more than just rooms with large tables and a few chairs. These spaces will be physically flexible enough to accommodate for future changes and technologically high-end enough to support modern learners. A diverse range of services (like poster printing) and experts (in IT and instructional design and intellectual property) will be in close proximity to the librarians (which is already happening***). Not to mention the presence of coffee shops, self checkout machines****, pool tables (one can hope), etc.

The library will be a space of collaboration, a bringing together of diverse academes, a scene of Bakhtinian carnivalesque.

Which leads us to the next question: What will librarians be doing in this new environment?

In some ways, there mightn’t be much change. Librarians will still be milling about, helping those who need help, doing things that librarians in libraries typically do (i.e., sit in meetings, form committees to do stuff). But there won’t be as many of them. Not that there’ll be fewer librarians overall – just fewer in the library. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if librarians begin to live outside the library. In departmental offices. In more accessible locations, where partnerships and collaborations can more conveniently happen. I hold weekly office hours in one of my liaison departments and I’ve experienced the advantages of proximity firsthand. As more and more students attend university remotely, the less and less meaningful the centralized and well-defined librarian role becomes. Perhaps we’ll maintain a floating existence with amorphous responsibilities, moving from information need to information need, from the physicals to the digitals, without being tied to a specific library. Perhaps we’re already doing this.

There’s been much talk of the profession’s future over the years (and over the last few days), and the only thing that’s certain is that librarians will be doing completely different things in completely different environments. And, that's the extent of my oracular abilities.

Thoughts?
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* It was this post at Dangerously Irrelevant that got me thinking about the academic library's future.

** This, of course, ignores the legality of kindle loaning. But it’ll happen at some point.

*** Which we’ve already seen with many of the learning commons or learning commons-like environments that have been created over the last few years.

***** Which, of course, won’t be for print books in the bookless library.

Image courtesy rosefirerising (I couldn't figure out how to make a caption)