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Lifelong learning in the community

“We often hear it said that libraries (and librarians) select, organize, retrieve and transmit information or knowledge. That is true. But those are the activities, not the mission, of the library. Certainly we perform those activities, but the important question is: To what purpose? We do not do those things by and of themselves. We do them in order to address an important and continuing need of the society we seek to serve. In short, we do them to support learning. […] We must create a learning society.”11

A learning society, lifelong learning, learning for life, the knowledge-based economy: the emergence of learning as an important political agenda has challenged libraries, museums and related organizations to show that they can make a difference, that they add value, that they are central to educational and civic missions. This is a common international theme, played out in different social and political contexts. Interestingly, this theme emerges at the same time as a more general questioning about the value of public goods and the open availability of resources.

Learning is an issue that resonates throughout social and political discussion.

Library and communities

A knowledge economy

A knowledge economy is a general label for an economy in which technology and the knowledge on which it is based are central motors of economic growth. This means that a growing number of workers manipulate symbols rather than machines. And it means that human or intellectual capital—the knowledge that comes from education, training, on-the-job experience and workplace-based e-learning—is central to sustaining personal and organizational advantage.

This economic shift has some implications:

• The ability to learn and to adapt to change is a central life skill. Learning is valued as a crucial coping skill in an environment of change and flexibility.
• There is growing fragmentation between those who are connected and those who are unconnected, where “connection” literally and metaphorically stands for social inclusion, in terms of access to life skills, opportunity and the instruments of learning.

• The global network is enabling interest communities to collaborate in real time on a planetary scale. This has been visible with large corporations and financial markets where information flows without recognizing borders. Research communities and other groups benefit from the ability to work together. At the same time, there is a resurgence of interest in regional and local identities as the world is recast as a network of regions and cities, as a sense of community and belonging becomes more important against this globalizing background. There is a growing desire to reclaim the local, to make local history and heritage resources more visible. New forms of community and identity are being forged around affinities of religion, politics, gender and lifestyle, and find support in network frameworks. Blogs and discussion groups are examples.

• The role of public services in the digital environment is under scrutiny. We can see countervailing trends. On one hand there is a general focus on access, on digitizing heritage collections, on making available the results of government-funded research, on providing learning and community resources. An especially interesting issue here is the emergence of home-schooling, and the corresponding lobby to have educational materials available on the network to support progressively advancing learning and teaching needs, particularly in math and sciences. On the other hand, there is a progressive commoditization of knowledge, a desire to restrict access to materials, through licensing and fees.

Libraries in the community

Libraries of all types seek to build the relationships and provide the services that create value to their communities, and which corroborate their role as trusted hubs of community and learning. This involves supporting the variety of learning experiences actively, in working with others to create the visible fabric of community, and in continuing as unobtrusive agents of social cohesion and personal fulfillment.

Here are some roles libraries play:

• Equalizing access in a fragmented society. Libraries have always supported the development of reading, writing and communication skills as well as the development of learning and information skills.
• Supporting the learning experience. Libraries, museums and related organizations are more consciously providing instruments for self-directed learners and curriculum support materials, and are teaching people to be learners. They recognize their complementarity to the formal learning process.
• Globalization and regionalization. The library is a gateway to global resources as a “gone digital” organization, but at the same time it acquires strong regional and local purpose—whether as part of a university with business, learning and cultural links, as a state or regional library that assumes the role of disclosing the business, historical and cultural identity of its area, or as community venue for reading sessions for dogs, belly dancing and meetings of the local DAR.
• The library, historical society and archive have a role in describing the explicit relationships and objects that are evidence and witness of a community and its sense of itself, or rather of the multiple communities that share any library. Local history records, sport, art, culture, social activities: these can be noted, described and shared. Individually such services provide value; made available as a network resource and brought into the same context of use as other such resources, that value is much enhanced.

Libraries are an important part of the civic fabric, woven into people’s working and imaginative lives and into the public identity of communities, cities and nations. They are social assembly places, physical knowledge exchanges, whose use and civic presence acknowledge their social significance and the public value accorded to them. In many countries throughout the world, they form a widely dispersed physical network of hospitable places, open to all. Every library is different, but to enter any one is to come home, to experience a “third place” whose mission is defined by service, where people can work unobserved and can develop as they wish. This trusted community role places libraries in a unique position to support the lifelong learner.

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