What is the point of reading? Librarians know ...

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.
Mark Twain

What possesses perfectly rational beings to make them drive more than 200 kilometres once a year to go to a seminar?

Passion

Yesterday was the annual New Norcia Library Lecture. And I like 129 of my colleagues made the drive up to the monastic town to listen to two passionate people from the library world speak about the issues facing the library and information profession today. The biggest believe it or not wasn't the lack of funding of which we have a major issue. Nor was it the fact that jobs are scarce, libraries are closing – but the impact those two issues are having on our profession as a whole.

The biggest issues are “Information literacy” and the Googleisation of our world. We don't need libraries everything is “on the internet”.  Therefore if we don't need libraries then we don't need librarians either.  How this erodes our society if far more subtle however, and a lot more damaging in that the literacy standards of our population is declining. Now that is worrying. It’s not that people can't read per se, but they lack functional literacy which means they are unable to read and comprehend things like medicine bottles. How scary is that thought? In a recent OCLC report it was the figure quoted was something like 59% of Australians were functionally literate . It appears the problem starts with the parents of the new generation not buying the books, they’re not reading to their children, consequently they’re not forming the patterns in their children’s brains. This means they will be unable to understand and comprehend those weird shapes and letters that will eventually form words and sentences. Believe me, if money is tight, and it’s the choice between books and food, most people will buy the food.

As libraries close, as children’s librarians are made redundant so too go the story time sessions the public libraries put on as part of their program of work. That to me is scary. But there is hope thanks to the passionate people who were at New Norcia yesterday, along with our colleagues across the country because next year is the year of reading, we can only hope it will make a difference.

But why New Norcia? Why drive to a monastic town in the middle of nowhere? Well, New Norcia, apart from being home to the only group of Benedictine Monks in Australia also has a unique collection of material. A repository of last hope. Donations of religious and secular material from across the world, and a considerable number from libraries which were closing down or running out of space and didn't want to throw the books away. Donations in the main, and with only $11,000 per year to spend on books and journals, you can see why they do rely on donations.

Not many people have been able to see the collection. Not many have had the opportunity to see any of the books within the library. Scholars who require access to the material which is actually housed across 10 buildings in New Norcia ask and it is collected for them. Yesterday, thanks to Abbott John Herbet and the persuasion of the New Norcia Librarian Sue Johnson we, all 130 of were allowed behind the monastery gates and we were allowed to see some of the collection. Something tells me it will be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Its’ not often ladies are allowed into the inner sanctum of the monks front room as it were.

But you will have to excuse me, I'm writing this while sitting on the balcony of the hotel where I stayed overnight, my respite and gift to myself once a year, well it is my birthday next week. It’s also freezing and I need to check out.

But the last 24 hours has given me a chance to recognize once again that without passion and the ability to act on that passion, we will never achieve anything worthwhile.
But if you would like to see what the library (well part of it) looks like - http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/-/arts/10196731/monasterys-library-an-arsenal-of-books/

With many thoughts
Elle

p.s. for those who don't know "me" I am also a Librarian and Information Management Consultant. I am very fortunate to cross many boundaries :-)