Panel discussion at MANLIBNET 2013 Dec 26-28, 2013

1. MANLIBNET 2013
International Conference on Entrepreneurial Approaches to Librarianship
December 26-28, 2013
Panel Discussion on
The relevance of libraries in the future
December 26, 2013

3. • The prison industry needs to
plan its future growth – how
many cells are they going to
need? How many prisoners
are there going to be, 15
years from now? And they
found they could predict it
very easily, using a pretty
simple algorithm, based on
asking what percentage of
10 and 11-year-olds couldn't
read. And certainly couldn't
read for pleasure.

4. •
Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading
what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the
21st-century equivalents of Victorian "improving" literature. You'll wind up with a
generation convinced that reading is uncool and
worse, unpleasant.
•
China in 2007, at the first party-approved science
convention in Chinese history.
fiction and fantasy
•
It's simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people
But they did not innovate and
they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they
brought them the plans.
sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the
people there who were inventing the future about themselves.
•
found that all of them had read science
fiction when they were boys or girls.
And they

5. • Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and
email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens
who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and
make themselves understood.
•
Libraries really are the gates to the future. So it is unfortunate that, round the world, we
observe local authorities seizing the opportunity to close libraries as an easy way to save
money, without realising that they are stealing from the future to pay for today. They
are
closing the gates that should be open.
• According to a recent study by the OECD, England is the "only country
where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both
literacy and numeracy than the youngest group, after other factors, such
as gender, socio-economic backgrounds and type of occupations are taken
into account".
• Or to put it another way, our children and our grandchildren are less
literate and less numerate than we are.

6. Libraries and development
• Beyond Access: Libraries powering development - Digital divide is
actually a development divide - Open Government Initiative
• There are about 250000 public libs in the world
• Ukraine: has 18000 libs
–
–
–
1000 provide free internet
Egov info
Gradually increasing the coverage
• Romania
–
–
Gates Foundation helped 23000 libs and trained 2500 libns
Increase employment
•
–
78k sought job assistance, 28k applied, 9k got jobs
Farm savings
•
•
90k farmers applied for farm subsidy through libs
100m e received as subsidy, 150k working days saved, 500k euros saved in transportation
• Challenges
–
–
–
Libs are caged in the ministry of ‘culture’, Should be multi ministry
Lack of experience with development partnerships, financial squeeze
Do not have the big impact picture
Source: IFLA 2013, Singapore

7. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses
by
Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa
• in short supply — is learning that is academic rather
than consumerist or market-driven.
• a majority of students surveyed said “that they had
not taken a single course . . . that required more
than twenty pages of writing, and one third had not
taken one that required even forty pages of reading
per week”

8. Libraries and Learning: A History of Paradigm Change
Scott Bennett, Yale University Librarian Emeritus
From: portal: Libraries and the Academy, 9(2), April 2009

9. The 95 Percent Solution: School is not where most Americans learn most of their science by
John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking
American Scientist: v. 98 (Nov-Dec), 2010

10. Universities, ours and theirs
Krishna Kumar (in The Hindu, August 9, 2012)
• Recruitment of faculty
• Concept of teaching (periods)
• Concept of knowledge – research
• Library
• The fourth critical difference lies in the library. In the West, even in the
most ordinary universities, the library forms the centre of life, both for
teachers and students. Librarians enjoy a high status as their contribution
to academic life cuts across academic disciplines…..

13. •
•
•
Michael Ellsberg
The author of The Education of
Millionaires: It’s Not What You Think and
It’s Not Too Late.
He spent two years interviewing the
nation’s most successful people who
didn’t graduate college, and who instead
majored in street smarts
Read more:
http://business.time.com/2012/07/12/t
he-glorious-end-of-higher-educationsmonopoly-oncredibility/#ixzz2D8AMYSQt

17. Economic Times ND 26/11/13

21. Can we fit into roles that can serve
users in this new world?
If yes, we are relevant
Else….