Moving On: library@orchard in transit

I’ve been thinking. (thinking leads to spewing. spewing leads to long posts… have patience ok, dear reader)

If you read this blog, you’ll probably know that this is the library@orchard’s blog, we are closing on Nov 30 2007, and the library@orchard is a public library located in Ngee Ann City, Singapore.

If you read more of this blog, you’ll know that we’re unique in that we’re trying to capture an age group, which according to a survey done years ago, did not really use the public libraries. And that group is: people aged btw 18-35.

According to said survey, this group of people “drop out” of the libraries after they leave school and they don’t come back until they have kids (it seems it’s more impt for kids to have good reading habits but it’s less impt for adults?).

To sidetrack abit, according to Jillian’s totally non-scientific observations, we can also add ”increasing decrease in the time available for reading” and “increasing disposable income to buy reading material” as some reasons for non-usage.

Anyway, I was actually gonna post about youths and the library!

Why?

Because… from some of the “findings” of our citizen reporters (Jean’s post and Priscilla’s post), they seem to be rather apathetic and bochup library users, in fact, some do not even use the library’s materials and to them the library is just another spot to study, hang out etc, ie no loss to them whether a library closes down or not, they can always find another similar spot.

Then again, whilst working at the library, I’ve come across many young people who are enthusiastic and really passionate about the issues or the activities they have committed themselves to.

For eg. at a panel discussion on Shark’s Fin (to eat or not to eat) which I facilitated, there were some youths amongst the audience who were not afraid to speak their mind, and who seemed to really want to make a difference in the world we live in.

Not to mention our teen citizen reporters who have blogged with verve and gusto! 
Check out: Joel’s Footnotes to Fairytales (btw Joel, I think I’ve never told you that I loved Mandy Moore in Saved!)
and Kenneth’s The Five People who will miss library@orchard (very) dearly

So to relate back to people leaving the libraries after they’re done with studying, could this be an indication that:
1) they were coming to the libraries only to study in the first place
2) when they were still in school, they were “forced” to find out more to get more marks
3) you’re just more curious and thirsty for knowledge before you get all “grown up” and stressed out at work!

*pondermonder*

Over the weekend, we had a programme on German language and culture. The turnout wasn’t fantastic but I met someone who asked the speaker what the German words on her T-shirt meant. Ended up chancing upon her blog (where you can find out more about those enigmatic words!) and she could be a future librarian!

I also met up with another of our citizen reporters, Ian Timothy. He’s done a post about libraries (and librarians too I hope!) as knowledge disseminators, as opposed to being repositories. I do agree that when libraries and librarians fulfill this role to “push” knowledge and facilitate its flow, we do create some form of demand for knowledge. Yup, we can inspire you to want to find out more, but I think the ultimate factor is still…. yourself!

So, are u HUNGRY? ;p

- Posted by Jillian

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 at 4:28 am and is filed under Librarian Says. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.