Library industry responds to THAT Financial Review article.

As many of you know, I was particularly *annoyed* after reading Geoff Hanmer’s opinion piece “Last hurrah for the traditional university library“, published in the Financial Review on Monday.

I was incredibly frustrated that someone not associated with our industry could publish such a piece, as though this news of the demise of libraries needed to be gently broken to us, by people who can see the truth of the situation. In my post, #futurelibraries (written hastily at 10:30 am that day, while I was desperately trying to put shoes on and get to work), I suggested that libraries needed to start controlling the dialogue about out future.

I was pleased, therefore, to see the response made by ALIA to Hanmer’s piece. You can see the full letter to the editor here, and it is well worth reading. A condensed version of this appeared in the hard copy version of the Financial Review on the 8th August.

Cathrine Harboe-Ree, President, Council of Australian University Librarians, (CAUL) also wrote a letter in reply.

The appearance of a condensed version of the ALIA reply is problematic. When we rely on media, we rely on someone else telling our story. We see edits. Cuts. Interpretation of the ‘important bits’ by someone who may only have a vague idea about what we do. (Something about books, right?)

This is why social media is some important. Our opinions are our own, good or bad. There was, for instance, some great exchanges on Twitter about Hanmer’s piece. We also saw many library workers taking to their blogs.

Andrew, the ‘Geocaching Librarian’, ‘Hip, hip, hurrah?’ .

Peta, the Social Library Project, Academic Libraries in the News–What of the future?

Michelle Dalton, “Bad libraries build collections. Good libraries build services”

Graeme Oke, La Trobe’s ‘Future Library’ blog post.

Peter Green, Needle in the haystack – the role of a library

Peter Green, Not dead yet – the University Library .

Individual voices are important in the promotion of our industry. I recognise the good work done by libraries around the world because of the voices of people who are employed with them, those who share their knowledge and views, and engage with others.