A year ago I stepped into the Samcheog Park Library in Seoul, South Korea and saw the future. The simple building in a forested park had a nice selection of books, a cafe at its center and a small patio. Classical music played while patrons read, reclining on extra-deep window benches that had cushions and tables that slid over their laps so that they could sip coffee and eat cheesecake while gazing at the leaves changing colors outside. Seoul is one of the most modern cities in the world a place suffused with the latest inescapable technology. This library was designed as an antidote to that.Comment
"What's so innovative about that?" a friend asked who works for the library here in Toronto asked when I showed her pictures. Innovation to her meant digital technology from drones and movie-streaming services and 3D printers, which the library was constantly showing off.
"Why couldn't they both be innovative?" I asked.
We are told that innovation is the most important force in our economy the one thing we must get right or be left behind. But that fear of missing our has led us to foolishly embrace the false trappings of innovation over truly innovative ideas that may be simpler and ultimately more effective. This mind-set equates innovation exclusively with invention and implies that if you just buy the new thing, voilà! You have innovated!
This commentary by the Author of The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter (2016) uses libraries as a frame to exemplify the foolishness of mistaking technology for "innovation." As an academic librarian I have crashed into the brick wall of technology worship again and again. The librarians who want to purchase some "innovative" technology are lauded as "visionaries" no matter how much money they waste on ineffective techie toys; Any librarian who wants to preserve literacy and contemplative space is labeled old-and-in-the-way no matter how many patrons ask for a quiet place to study.
As the article points out, the false promise of technology is hardly benign. Schools have sacrificed art and music and sports programs in order to by computers that turn out to be ineffective for learning and quickly obsolete. Cities that destroyed their human-scaled centers to accommodate parking now have to innovate to get rid of too much traffic.
In the library stories I have collected, technology (with the exception of digitized archives) hardly ever figures as "innovative, much less transformational. Rather, libraries are given as an example of the digital divide -- only the poor and underserved need to travel to a library for clunky, outdated tech offered during limited hours. The stories of transformation tend to center on collections and on the intellectual space of the library faculty -- study space, a place to meet, discovery of a life-changing book, finding hidden treasure in dusty boxes, self-discovery and coming of age through reading.
Sax defines innovation as "a continuing process of gradual improvement and assessment." When technology becomes the problem, the true innovation may be what Sax calls "rearward innovation" to adapt or revive older systems that worked in more social and human-focused ways. As an example of rearward innovation, Sax cites the publication of "Penguin Minis," pocket-sized print books that combine convenience and physicality. This re-designed codex format was launched in the U.S. with a set of John Green books, an author especially popular with "iGen" readers. That fuddy-duddy librarian from Toronto hasn't yet realized that computer technology is old-hat. In order to be innovative it has to do something that is useful and beneficial.
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