In 2020, COVID-19 forced us to adapt. The necessity to create and maintain distance to prevent the spread of the virus forced some to isolate at home. Those deemed essential often slept on co-worker’s couches, in motels, or even their cars in order to avoid brining disease home. In this time, culture went online: Theaters, music venues, libraries, and more took to the web with free-for-all content that one used to only expect in person. It was a glimmer of hope and care in the midst of crisis, a connection as necessity forced our alienation from one another.
As mitigations and general care about COVID faded, so did many of these online options. Especially since many included the purchase and implementation of recording or broadcasting equipment and software, this trend is economically wasteful and a huge missed opportunity. The disappearance of these options feels like a step backwards. In this essay, I’ll explore several aspects of the driving philosophies behind the profession and how they support the idea that remote options should become a norm, not just an exceptional case during disaster.
Accessibility and Equity
In preparation for this essay, I dug through my surprisingly large personal library of library science and philosophy texts and found no references to the subjects of accessibility I want to touch on here. They often paint broad pictures of accessibility, but for actual implementation of policy and ideas that create accessibility and equity, specificity is often needed. For millions of people, for many various reasons, in-person events aren’t doable for everyone: People with vocal tics don’t want to be disruptive, autistic people can be overwhelmed by loudspeakers or scents, and people with post-viral illness sometimes run out of energy and need immediate rest, just to name a few.
Hundreds or thousands of people in your community can be bed- or homebound, and for them, poetry readings and history seminars just aren’t an option. One way you can include people with disabilities simply is by streaming events. And even beyond this, you have the option to include people who might be interested in the event, but only from the comfort of their Lay-z-boy. Viewership helps legitimize library spending on activities and programs, and online participants are just as real and valuable as the ones seated in the library. You can even make clubs and interactive programming accessible with some simple Zoom etiquette and calls for input from remote participants. It’s 2025, not 1925: You should be trying to make more internet accessible options wherever possible. People enjoy and need choice in how they can participate, and something as simple as a livestream could easily double community participation for some events.
Preservation
In his 2005 paper “Librarianship and the Philosophy of Information”, Ken R. Herold says, “The perennial duty of the librarian as midwife to the birth of knowledge has not changed appreciably with the passing of centuries. If anything there has been increased recognition of our responsibilities for preserving cultural heritages in an age of virtuality and transience.” Anyone whose had any training or long-time experience in libraries knows that it’s a librarian’s duty to both provide and preserve information.
It used to be much more common to record library events during the age of magnetic tape. Since that time, it has only become simpler to record not just sound, but quality video. And with terabyte hard drives running at the price of about $60, you can keep what used to be a basement’s worth of library recordings in the palm of your hand. So why have we stepped backwards? Why in an era of “content generation” have many libraries forgotten about these tools critical to both our community’s culture and profession? With little more than a laptop and a webcam or even just a smartphone, you can offer not only streaming access, but informative and culturally relevant recordings that will be useful for so many reasons in the future.
Resource Sharing
In our business-minded society, a lot of what libraries are meant to do can seem counterintuitive or even backwards. When you view the library as a utility, however, opportunities for resource sharing are obvious and well-used among most libraries. You’re likely overly familiar with Inter-Library Loan, but in many places, that can be the extent of library cooperation. Remote options give you the ability to share livestreams with your region and offer on demand recordings of events afterward.
Imagine a collective of libraries offering their programming not just to the people gathered for a writer’s speaking engagement or a presentation on local Native history at your library, but all the libraries in the surrounding area. With just a bit of software (likely that your institution already uses, such as Zoom), libraries can collaborate to create denser, broader, and more frequent library programming for the benefit of everyone involved. All you need is an idea and a little communication. Why rely on paid streaming services alone for content when you and nearby libraries could be making and sharing your own?
Community
In a lot of ways, the internet is just as real to some people as the physical world. Apps like Snapchat, Discord, and Signal give people the ability to chat with friends on the other side of the globe as if they were in the same room. To ignore and devalue this community and culture just because it’s not physical is, frankly, backwards. Is making friends by letter writing somehow more “real” because there is paper involved? I can’t play online games with my Australian friends via mail, but simple text and voice chat open the world to me!
It seems silly that many libraries don’t use the free tools at their fingertips and reach out to the netizens around them by streaming library events like poetry readings or musical performances on any dozens of apps. TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, and more have easy-to-use streaming options, many of which include creation of VODs which can be downloaded or linked to for later viewing. And that’s where many of the younger generations have flocked and the most likely place you are to interact with them. Expand your community and your reach by embracing the remote. If you have the equipment and know how to use these formats, consider multi-streaming on multiple formats to further expand your web-based community.
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