Obsolete? Public libraries embrace their biggest competition — the Internet, mega-chain bookstores and new media — and use them as selling points. Delaware Today, June 2003 When the Internet became a household word (and a household tool) about five years ago, nearly everyone — including some career librarians — wondered whether it would replace libraries as the public's primary information resource. Hasn't happened. In fact, if the Internet is making libraries obsolete, then heaven help this article: I typed and filed the whole thing using the computer terminals at my local public library. Libraries embrace the Internet Susan Menson, president of the Delaware Library Association's Public Libraries Division, says savvy tourists are already taking into account their proximity to a public library while on the road. "We're seeing a lot of people who are traveling and have learned that around the country, libraries are a source of Internet access." That free access can spare vacationers from pricey hotel access fees. The Wyndham Hotel in Wilmington, for instance, charges $9.95 per day for Internet access. The Doubletree in North Wilmington charges $4 per day. But a trip down the road to a public library gives out-of-towners access to Web-based e-mail and the Internet, all without cost. It's reason enough to pencil in a library route on your TripTik. In fact, says Mitch Freedman, president of the American Library Association, those prophets of doom who thought the Internet would render libraries obsolete couldn't be more wrong. Far from drawing people out of libraries, the Web has drawn them in. "The Internet has sparked public library use," he says. "People who can't afford to purchase their own terminals know that they can come to the library." Freedman says job-seekers have also latched onto the library as a resource for online access. "[Libraries] have free Internet terminals that people can use for job-related information," he says. Of particular importance is access to online employment ads, which in the past several years have become just as popular with employers as traditional print ads. Monster.com, one of the most successful Internet job-search sites, recorded more than 20 million unique visitors to its site in January 2003. In that month alone, more than 1 million resumes were submitted to the site, says Kevin Mullins, Monster's public relations manager. In this respect, America's public library system has become a weapon against the "digital divide" — the ever-widening gully that separates people who have personal Internet access from those who don't. "There's so much you can't do if you can't get ahold of a screen," Menson says. "Public libraries, they've always served as the way for people with less financial means to have the same information as wealthy people." Free Internet access at public libraries has provided reference librarians with a new niche. Even though the Internet is largely self-serve, users often require some know-how to navigate it. Today's librarians have been trained to help make sense of the gobs of information floating around in cyberspace. "People get 10,000 hits when they ask Google a question," Freedman says. "The librarian knows what the best Web sites are and can help the person get to sites that have been validated and are up to date." The sour economy has also brought people back to public libraries. "These economic times make it far more difficult for people to rent movies, buy books and purchase other recreational services," Freedman says. So they turn to the public library, where these materials are available for free. Menson says she's also noticed an increase of adult students in her Bear branch. "We are open at hours that are convenient to them," she says. "They're coming in and using our magazine databases and just sheerly the physical facilities." The public library also draws in newcomers to the country, Menson says, and most libraries have stocked up on English-as-a-second-language resources and collections of literature in other languages. "Public libraries were formed to really serve an immigrant community, to help give them materials to become American, and I think that's still going on," she says. The New Free Library Through generous contributions from loyal patrons and heaps of state and county aid, the fully renovated Newark Library and the brand-new Brandywine Library opened within the past year, setting the mark for Delaware libraries in this digital age. "I call that the Titanic," says Jim Conrad, the 78-year-old unofficial spokesman for the Brandywine branch library and a longtime member of the Friends of the Concord Pike Library. He's pointing to the acute-angled helm of the Brandywine Library building, encased by glass and metal, which isn't the only nautical design element in the Brandywine branch's architecture. Thick steel support beams reach up to suspend the second floor. Look around carefully and you might even see some portholes. The $11.4 million library, wedged into Talley Day Park along Foulk Road in North Wilmington, replaces the aging Concord Pike Library, but its reach will now extend past the Brandywine Hundred area. Conrad calls it the first county-wide library, meant to serve the entire New Castle County population. For the project, the state invested $4.8 million and the county chipped in $3.7 million, but the rest of the bill landed in the hands of the Friends of Concord Pike Library, who held fundraisers and solicited private contributions to come up with the remaining $2.9 million. The new Brandywine Library, which is two and a half times larger than the old Concord Pike facility, includes a café area and public conference rooms, plus cozy fireplaces on each of its two floors. And whereas the Concord Pike Library had only 20 computers (and nearly half of them were used for administrative tasks), the Brandywine Library opened with more than 70 new computers up and running. Conrad — think of him as the Jay Kordich of public libraries — sells his vision of the new library with such zeal that donors have sometimes doubled or tripled their intended contributions after talking with him. On opening day in mid-April, the parking lots in Talley Day Park could hardly contain the patrons who had come to get their first glimpses of the new library. The racks of DVDs on the first floor drew hoards, as did the Internet terminals and the children's section. The line at the circulation desk became so long, often numbering more than a dozen patrons, that library staffers established a makeshift maze of amusement park-style partitions to keep the line in order. Even now that the opening day hooplah has died down, the check-out line often stays wrapped around the full length of the circulation desk. Potential Brandywine Library patrons might get a confidence booster if they've visited the newly renovated and expanded Newark Library. Its centerpiece, a hub of flat-screen Internet terminals, fills up even during off-peak hours. All over the library, little nooks with modern, comfortable furniture invite visitors to sit and read. The $5.5 million renovation project took a little over a year, with the building closed for all of 2002. Other features of the expansion include a Delaware history room and a children's wing. In the past few years, Menson says, New Castle County's library system has experienced great growth, which merits the renovations, and Kent and Sussex counties' systems have become more unified. "We have, in the last few years, been well supported by County Council," she says, and the sheer leap in Delaware's population has helped libraries' numbers. In April, the state's Department of Community Services, which oversees the public library system, requested from the state a $9.86 million New Castle County budget for fiscal year 2004, up about 15 percent from this year's budget. That extra money will be used to bulk up the budget for new titles, to pay for the increased utilities at the Newark and Brandywine branches and to support the café operations at the newer libraries, says Ann Hampton, Community Services manager. Commercial influence Though many of the books haven't changed, the library as an institution has had to adapt since the days when a librarian's main duty was to shoosh the loudmouths. Mega-chain bookstores have influenced the look and features of public libraries. Borders and Barnes & Noble, for instance, have café areas with comfy couches, so libraries added them too. When Conrad was younger, "if you wanted to come in and drink coffee while reading a book, the librarian would say, 'Not on your life.'" he says. Now, though, "We've changed." Both the Newark Library and the Brandywine Branch have coffee shops, mirroring new libraries across the country. One library in Stanford, Conn., has a Starbucks attached to it, Freedman says. With the popularity of the big chains, one might think they're luring patrons out of the library. But despite their influence, librarians don't fear commercial bookstores, no matter how attractive the espressos, Menson says. Bookstores and libraries simply aren't in competition with each other because they serve different needs, she says, and librarians are just as likely to browse through commercial bookstores as anyone else. "We're probably some of the people who are sitting at Borders and Barnes & Noble with our coffee and our stack of books." Both library patrons and bookstore patrons are people who like to read, Menson says, "but if you walk into a bookstore and ask a reference question, somebody might be there, but that isn't their primary job. Their job is to sell you materials. Our job is to help you find answers." E-Books and New Media The Gemstar 2150 e-book reader ($299) is the size and weight of a hardback novel. It contains enough memory to hold thousands of pages of text, and instead of flipping pages, users press buttons on the reader to move from page to page. Five years ago, e-book creators boasted that this technology would one day render libraries obsolete because an entire library might be contained in one tiny e-book reader. But after the Internet bubble burst and technology stocks curdled, e-book euphoria quickly dissolved and manufacturers realized their growth would take longer than first expected. Still, the technology hasn't been completely scrapped. The American Library Association has coupled with several publishing associations to promote their applications in a library setting. Nick Bogaty, executive director of the New York-based Open E-Book Forum, an e-book standards developer, says e-book companies are trying to flaunt their products to libraries. "A lot of tech companies — like Adobe and Palm Digital Media — have products that allow for use in libraries," he says. "Libraries, in the e-book industry, are seen as a real growth area." A few public libraries across the country already have the technology in place. The Cleveland Public Library system, for instance, has several hundred e-book titles available to its patrons through its Digital Library Connection program, Bogaty says. While e-books may catch on in Delaware eventually, Menson says, they won't replace regular books. They'll simply be an alternative. "I don't think we're going to lose the book as a form — it's too convenient," she says. "It's cheap, it's portable, and it doesn't take any equipment to use it." Look at children's books, she says. Even with the wealth of computer games, videos and TV shows vying for toddlers' time, nothing beats a picture book for a nightly cool-down period before bed. This doesn't mean that libraries aren't embracing new technology. Audio books have become a popular, reasonably priced resource that most libraries have offered for more than a decade. But with changing technology, Menson says, "We're moving on to books on CD. One of the companies is now marketing books on MP3s." The same technology shift can be seen among libraries' video tape collections. "We're moving from videos to DVDs," she says. When the next wave of technology hits, libraries will be ready for that, too, she says. "We're moving with markets — as well as with demand." Shaun Gallagher is Delaware Today's managing editor.