Life in a Library Pt 2 - The Decline of Borrowing?

When I first thought about working in a library I thought, ‘That would be great, to be surrounded by books all day. Talking to people about books, making reading recommendations, running book clubs. I would love that’.

However since we have had public computers in our library I now spend most of my time trying to teach people either how to use them or how to print from them. The Amazon return label is a bane of my life.

That and plane tickets. Thank you budget airlines for allowing people to check in online and print out their boarding passes before they leave home. Now you just need to give them the printers and the knowledge so that they can do it themselves!

Every day I lose count of the amount of times I have to say ‘Press that button to print’ and ‘Your printouts are going to cost x amount’. It seems like books are now of secondary importance to the internet and a printer.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a technophobe. Quite the opposite in fact. I love technology, computers and gadgets. Always have. Ever since I got my very first BBC computer. Remember those? And I believe that everyone should have equal access to such technology and the internet. As more and more services are pushed online and practically everything has to be done digitally now it is essential that everyone has this access.

I would just like people to be more interested in our books as well.

But it’s not just computers and printing that has led to this decline. It is everything else that we now have to do, to stay relevant. For instance, we help people get their bus passes, provide local information such as bus timetables, run events and talks on all kinds of subjects, for all ages from babies up to pensioners, and can even fit caps to the ends of people’s walking sticks, if you can believe it!

Whilst I understand that we have to diversify and modernise I sometimes worry that this dilutes our core offer which is essentially about providing free reading materials. As books take a greater step backwards in everyone’s thinking they lose their importance. Soon they may end up disappearing into the background entirely. Being used solely as backdrops for when you want a nice photo or video of something and want to give it some gravitas.

But there is still hope. Book sales continue to grow across the world so people are obviously still reading, even if they are not getting as many books from libraries. So there is still a desire for books and enough supply to meet this demand. It just seems to be that people now prefer to pay for them rather than to get them for free, albeit for a limited time.

Also the sales of ebooks continue to soar which is great for those who like to read on a tablet or phone and for those that sell them. I’m looking at you Amazon! Personally I always prefer a book in my hand to a screen but maybe that’s just my age.

Either way, as long as books remain part of our culture and there is still a passion for reading I guess I shouldn’t complain. But I probably will anyway!