Public Libraries? 2021

As I get more involved in my local library, this question has been on my mind a lot. What can our local library offer that is valued by our community? It feels like our library is not keeping up with the times. it still focuses on physical books, the process around checking out books is not great and online services are not integrated at all with the book side of the "business". Families with kids use the library and older people still check out physical books, while teenagers don't consider the library a service at all.  People without much disposable income can read and learn and that is a really great benefit for our community, so we don't want to discontinue that. But people with sufficient income just purchase all their content on line (books from Barnes and Noble or Amazon, audiobooks from audible, ebooks from NOOK and Kindle, pretty much everything imaginable on YouTube for free).

So what should the library of the future look like? This is the project I have set out to define. This is my Project CW (Change the World) for 2021. 

Here are some of the questions I am asking. If you have thoughts or are interested in helping me on this project, I would love the collaboration. I plan on writing a series of articles focusing on these questions.

What is the role of the library in learning and reading? Libraries were born out of the need to give access to books for reading and learning when access to this material was much less available. Now that there is so much information out on the web and it is so easy to receive and consume, what is the library's role?

What role do physical books have in our future? What should the mix be of physical vs electronic medium?

With all the technology we have now related to books and reading and learning, how should the library leverage this technology (e.g., allow checkout of ereaders)?

What services are considered valuable for:

• Seniors
• families with children
• Teenagers
• Lower income families
• higher income families

Should the library support just some of these categories, and not all

Should the library be more of a community gathering place with more space for people and less for physical books? Should they serve coffee? :-)

What combination of services could a library offer that would be unique and valuable?

What other services should a library focus on such as seminars on topics of interest, clubs (e.g., knitting, chess), acting, etc.?

Are there library models in other countries that should be considered?

These are some of the questions I plan to answer in the coming months. If you have thoughts on these questions I would love to chat, if you have other questions I would love to include those in my list to answer, and any thoughts are greatly appreciated!