New Orleans was crowded with librarians this past weekend as the American Library Association held its annual conference. 20,000 people descending on a city have quite an impact. New Orleans had welcoming weather—hot, but only a few major rain showers and one real thunderstorm during the conference. For that we can all be grateful.
Children’s librarians had plenty of programs to attend, from the book-oriented sessions to discussions of the future of the book and digital resources. One noticeable trend among the attendees was that every session that dealt with digital materials or technology trends was filled to overflowing with standees at the back of the room and others hovering around the doorway. What is the future of ebooks and what are libraries going to do to cope with the inevitable changes? That was the challenge heard on every side. One speaker from the Internet Archive project told the audience that over 700,000 self-published books came out during the past year. What are librarians going to do to make these books available to their patrons?
And what about transliteracy? That’s an important word to know. It means the ability to read, write and interact across a range of tools and media. Sounds as though that’s what our children need these days, doesn’t it? As one speaker flashed up on the screen—The 21st century is when everything changes—and the patrons we serve in our schools and libraries are 21st century natives. We need to keep up with the growing importance of digital access. A good website to know about is www.digitalliteracy.gov which gives information about how the U.S. government is trying to extend Broadband throughout society, eliminating the digital barriers in some communities. But Broadband access is not enough; many technologies are not intuitive and libraries should be places where children (and adults) can learn the skills they will need for the coming changes.
Just as valuable as the programs, perhaps, were the exhibits that stretched out for acres in the huge, mile-long convention center. Children’s book publishers offered tables full of brilliantly colored picture books and attention-demanding series books. What were not on display were the interactive books that are coming out for children. Trade publishers are lagging in making available the apps that bring children’s books to their i-pads, i-phones, and other devices. The slow start in this area is partly due to the difficulty of pricing children’s ebooks. Publishers haven’t quite decided whether to make them available in series on a subscription basis or to sell them outright as individual digital products. The educational publishers have intriguing offerings for schools, designed for both classrooms and school libraries, but the type of books bought by most public libraries were nowhere to be seen. Publishers certainly had not brought examples to the conference. Every publisher I spoke to told me that next year they would have ebooks on display in the conference—but that’s what they were saying at the last conference too.
What are librarians to do? Well, for one thing keep after the publishers to produce the kinds of materials we need. Keep asking when they are going to bring their titles out as apps that kids can read at home. Remind them how important it is for librarians to be able to purchase the exact titles they want, not a package of books shoved together to increase the price. We owe it to our child patrons!
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