CROSS COUNTRY CHECKUP AND THE LIBRARY OF FUTURE (CIRCA 1995)

Duncan McCue begins hosting the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio One's call-in show, Cross Country Checkup, on a regular basis at the start of August 2016. This popular show has been on air for more than fifty years. Long-time commentator and author, Rex Murphy, hosted this show for more than twenty years. He often scheduled programs and issues related to books, reading, and libraries in a lively debate mode from the mid-1990s to 2015.

I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Mr. Murphy way back in March 1995 when the future of libraries and books, seemingly overwhelmed in the coming age of the Internet, was often questioned.

• Could libraries stay relevant in the age of the Information Highway?
• Would they wither way and leave half-empty buildings behind, even disappear?
• Could they transition to Virtual Libraries - Libraries Without Walls - Electronic Libraries - Digital Libraries, whatever they might be called in the 21st century?

Robert Fulford spoke on the same program about the use of electronic reference media in a library setting and how important these kinds of resources were. He was not worried about the passing of the traditional role of libraries any time soon.

Of course, Rex Murphy is a skilled interviewer and put me on the spot more than once. But after re-listening to my spontaneous responses in support of libraries as brick and concrete community resource spaces and accessible places where people and students could find mediators to help locate information, I think most of what I said remains valid twenty years on. The printed book is still with us as a staple in the library along with other media formats. But e-books are great too and they are a lot easier to use now. There are lots of non-print materials --digital resources -- in libraries.

The issues about of how libraries have been transformed from storage sites to information providers have been raised and debated many times since the early 1990s. In fact, this question dates to the use of computers in libraries beginning in the 1960s. Now, the prospects for the 21st century 'library' -- Library 2.0 - are front and center. But, users are still the focus: libraries change in relation to user needs and demands and how 'publishers' and the 'public' create content in a multiplicity of ways. There are many types of publishers and many types of public. There are many varieties of libraries, too.

My interview with Mr. Murphy was recorded more than twenty years ago as a .wav file, so click this link and turn up your audio volume if you are interested in going back to 1995.

My interview with Mr. Murphy was recorded more than twenty years ago as a .wav file, so click this link and turn up your audio volume if you are interested in going back to 1995.

If you prefer to read the transcription for the session interview, following along below.

TRANSCRIPTION FOR REX MURPHY--LORNE BRUCE INTERVIEW ON CROSS COUNTRY CHECKUP, CBC RADIO, SUNDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 19, 1995

Rex Murphy: Obviously we're talking about books we have at some point to talk about libraries. Libraries have long been the bearers of the torch much like the monasteries in the Middle Ages, but they've also been quick in this new age to adapt to the new technology. Mr. Lorne Bruce is a librarian at the University of Guelph and he's written a book called "Free Books for All" published by Dundurn Press. I spoke with Mr. Bruce earlier today. RM: Mr. Bruce because of your association, at least to my knowledge, is primarily with libraries I mean to put this kind of question to you. Is the library as a central social institution anywhere near as central as it was even 10 or 15 or 20 years ago? What the question means is has all this new kind of information and new ways of gathering information displaced libraries as places where books are kept as things important in people's lives? Lorne Bruce: Well, I think there has been a move away from print, a print type of culture in Canada, certainly during this century with a lot of multimedia, but I think libraries have tried to keep up, tried to remain central to offering a variety of information and also a knowledge base for citizens so that they can come into the library and find information. Talk to librarians who are essentially mediators in the process of information and building knowledge. And I think that the various provincial governments or municipal governments have tried to show [this] for example in some of their advertising campaigns. There was one here in Ontario about 10 years ago, "More than Meets the Eye," that libraries do do computer searches. They do have cd [roms]. They're using multimedia. RM: Yeah, but here's my point. Once the libraries walk away from the core of collected books that are there for people to pick up and take home and to read, once they offered a full gallery and menu of other information services even though you keep the name how much have you ceased to be a library? LB: Well, it's still a library. I mean a library is multimedia. RM: It is? LB: It is, yes, there are multimedia libraries and the public library has always tried to have [these] in addition to books other types of formats. RM: OK, maybe I can put the question to your plainer. LB: I would say that they're not trying to abandon or walk away from print media, but they're trying to incorporate these other types of formats. RM: And when you say the print media, do you mean books? LB: Yes. LB: What do you call them [books] again? I am not being annoyingly saucy. Why you call them print media? LB: Well, I think in the library world there are different types of formats and print format is essentially fiction-nonfiction [publications]. Electronic formats are things like cd roms, computerized searches from databases which are remote in the United States. And, of course, then there's music and recordings and so on, 16-millimeter films, videos ... RM: Can I ask the question. If the libraries at the present day or if the libraries that you are familiar with had in them nothing else but books for this just as a hypothetical situation nothing but books, how many people will be going to it compared to the number of people that are going to now? LB: Oh, it's very difficult to estimate in terms of percentages and numbers, but certainly it would be a smaller number of people coming into the library. RM: Drastically? LB: At a university? No, not drastically, not drastic cuts in numbers, but certainly I think maybe public libraries would be able to keep say 75 percent of the base of people are coming in.
RM: Can you tell me from your own experience outside of a university context as well, has the type of person who is now visiting a library call him a client or her client, is that type of person a different person from what he or she was 20 years ago? LB: Well ... that is a difficult question! Studies show that basically the people who continue to come into libraries are more highly educated. They have more specific demands. Perhaps there has been a trend away with these new electronic sources and so on in special libraries and in business libraries and even in public libraries for people to move away from recreational reading and there's more of a function towards providing information services. That's more of a component. RM: I was going to ask whether the cd roms, whether the information retrieval, whether the ability to connect up with online services and things were the popcorn to get people in to watch the movie. But it sounds like I am misreading it. So, it sounds like they are the movie and the books are the popcorn. LB: Well, I think yes. Books are still the bread and butter. Let's not call it the popcorn. But, certainly, for years and years libraries [and] public libraries have tried to promote computerized searches. And it brings up a variety of issues in the context of downsizing and so on in the last 15 years, of fees for service. And I think these are some of the issues that we're seeing, for example in some of the western cities, not so much in Ontario. RM: Yeah, but there's another question as we make it pretty close to the end. Do you think that libraries as centers should be there be there in this kind of field? And one of the great advantages for computer claims, the kinds of information that can be accessed via a computer, is that you don't need a big central building. You don't need a warehouse full of people. You simply stay at home typing a few numbers or a few letters and haul it up yourself. LB: Well, you're assuming there that people have the ability to search and manipulate information in these remote databases and go onto the Internet and use Gophers and web servers and so on. I think that will always be a role for the mediator there, and I think a good place is the public library. Good heavens, a lot of the Internet services are public library catalogues, university catalogues, and that's where people are going to to try and get information. RM: Would it be right to say that previously a library was a repository for information and now it's an interface. LB: I would think so. There's definitely a service component and not the storage component that was so, so obvious for many years ... especially in the nineteenth century! RM: Which library would you prefer? A nineteenth-century libary or a twentieth-century library? LB: Oh, [I] much rather a twentieth-century library because there will be a broader range of services! There is a better service component. Obviously, there's more to read and more to look at and [more] to search. RM: OK, Mr. Bruce, thank you very much for coming in. LB: Thank you very much for having me.