How libraries are competing in the digital age
In the Pittsford Public Library, there are drop-in sessions to learn how to master your Kindles and iPads and smartphones.
The Parma Public Library has art shows.
And the Henrietta Public Library will sometimes come to you, with a suitcase-based pop-up library that makes the rounds at farmers markets, businesses and other places people gather.
As controversy bubbles in Greece over a town decision to make changes in a beloved secondhand bookstore within its main branch library and add a coffee shop — and hopefully a few more patrons — the move echoes efforts rippling nationwide as public library systems strive to evolve and keep up with a whole new set of demands from their communities.
"If you had told me when I started library school that I'd soon be able to hold the content of a library in the palm of my hand, I'd have said you were crazy, that was stuff out of The Jetsons," said Adrienne Furness, director of the Henrietta Public Library. "But that's an iPhone, isn't it? And that can be a little overwhelming, so I think one of the roles we're stepping into is helping people figure out what's worth their time."
In its State of America's Libraries Report for 2014, the American Library Association spells out the myriad ways these transformations are ongoing, and the end result is something that for certain is not your great-grandmother's staid old library.
Instead of mausoleum quiet and tut-tutting librarians shushing chatty bookworms, there are new, dynamic community hubs with cafés and comfy seats, small business incubators, collaboration spaces, 3-D printers and more hands-on elements than ever before. There's even a library outside Syracuse offering an organic gardening program that includes check-out of a garden plot of your very own.
The changing times "means fundamental change in the very nature of what we do and how we do it," said Keith Michael Fiels, ALA executive director.
No more is the library just a passive provider. The library of today and tomorrow "must be proactive; it must engage its community," he said. "Increasingly, libraries are serving as conveners, bringing community members together to articulate their aspirations and then innovating in order to become active partners and a driving force in community development and community change."
Happy medium
So, what does this have to do with a coffee shop in Greece?
There's been controversy in the town in recent weeks as partial plans to put a coffee shop in the library rippled out through the community, with a mix of true and false creating a vortex of misinformation that worried longtime library supporters.
Members of the Friends of the Greece Public Library see their prime spot in the Vince Tofany Boulevard library as a key player in their ability to sell tens of thousands of dollars in used books each year at their Secondhand Prose store, almost all of which is funneled back to the library for programs, furnishings and other extras. Indeed, just last summer, the town finished a $600,000 renovation project in the library that converted 3,000 square feet of area that formerly held books into two 1,500-square-foot program rooms and carved out the glassed-in bookstore specifically for the Friends.
In its previous space, a tiny closet of a store, there wasn't enough room for more than two customers at a time, and no room for a wheelchair or stroller. Business picked up since the move in 2013, said Diane Johansen, a Friends volunteer. Every year, the group gives about $50,000 to support library programs, all of it raised by selling $1 and $2 used books.
The gravest fear was that Secondhand Prose would get shoved back in the closet, or be shuttered completely.
Deputy Supervisor Michelle Marini has been busy in recent weeks tamping down those rumors. She wrote a letter to a weekly newspaper and posted a sign outside the Friends' bookstore promising that the store would stay open.
Changes there aren't about giving Friends the boot, she said, but instead about trying to open a coffee shop/cafe in the one spot in the building that's adjacent to the existing plumbing lines.
"Go into Barnes & Noble and you see people sitting around reading, enjoying a cup of coffee," she said. "Our interest and goal is in getting the next generation of our residents to take advantage of the library and its resources. The coffee shop fits this vision."
Late this week, the town and Friends reached what Friends' President Mary Jo Whalen called a "very happy medium."
The incoming coffee shop and book store will share space, with renovations planned after the first of the year that could ultimately mean even more space for the bookstore.
"The board members are very excited this came to a happy resolution," she said. "As Supervisor Reilich said, this is about trying something new to see if it works, and who knows? It might be a big hit."
Social center
The Rochester Public Library's Central Branch downtown has a Tim Horton's, and the new Gates Public Library has a self-serve Keurig coffee maker with an array of hot options.
The Brueggers Bagel shop sharing space with the Pittsford Commmunity Library on State Street is a bonus for patrons, said library director Marjorie Shelly.
"We have many people here who are using us as their office; it's become a social center of the community, where people come in and make their visit a social outing," she said. "So having something like that helps make it a social experience."
Even big-city libraries are recognizing that new role, as in Boston, which renovated its central library with lounge areas, restaurant booths, game rooms and more for teens, and added other community-center like amenities.
Becky Gilbert, director of the 8,000-square-foot Parma Public Library would love to stick in a coffee machine for users, but can't find a spare square of space. Still, they're finding more and more ways to offer something new, like painting classes.
"We're becoming almost like a maker's space," she said. "We're creating things here, something you can take home and display in your house. People are turning to their library with questions about these things, things they want to do to make their life better."
This transformation is taking place in academic libraries, too.
"Library buildings used to be about books first and people second, and that's flipped to being about people first and books second," said Shirley Bower, director of libraries at Rochester Institute of Technology. With more information available digitally, more floor space is available to offer students more areas for collaboration, quiet, meetings and creativity. Asked during a recent renovation what the library meant to them, students at RIT said they wanted a place to discover information, that had rich cultural resources and technology, and spaces where they could connect with their peers and faculty.
"Libraries will continue to evolve as things continue to go more digital, but libraries will continue to be the community center," said Bower. "This is the heart of the university, and libraries are the heart of the community, places where people come together. Libraries belong to the entire community."
Cassie Guthrie, who took over as director of the Greece Public Library earlier this year, said she has plans on tap for changes there that are bigger than a coffee counter. In 2015, there will be more focus on finding ways to use the library to help residents express their creativity, and create and share content.
"I think the idea is more like the library as a kitchen, whereas in the old days the library was more of a grocery store," she said. "What we're seeing more and more today is that the public library is a place where content is created, and librarians are becoming facilitators for knowledge creation in their communities."
MCDERMOT@DemocratandChronicle.com