An Unplugged Space
By Amanda Wakaruk and Marc Truitt
Tue, 11/15/2011 - 14:32
Would your patrons value a gadget-free quiet zone in your library?
PrintThe physical library was once a place of refuge, an escape from distraction. But today, the constant need to connect and communicate has largely rendered this role obsolete. The power of coupling networking tools with instant access to vast amounts of information is now an essential feature of library programs, services, and facilities. A library without internet and Wi-Fi access is, thankfully, an anomaly.
The traditional role of the library as a physical place where individuals find information has been largely supplanted by its function as a space where information can be interrogated in a communal environment. This is also a good thing. However, as more people use the library as a social third place (after home and work), the reality of the library as a place of intellectual refuge sadly resonates with fewer users.
In addition to being regarded as technology hubs for the public, should libraries reclaim their reputation for solitude by offering communication-free zones where people can easily engage in private, focused reading and reflection?
True, reading rooms are often quiet, but even in these spaces the average library user’s focus is punctuated by the clatter of keystrokes, visual email alerts, and the vibrations of smartphones. The effects of these constant digital distractions—variously labeled as cognition overload, online compulsive disorder, data smog, and popcorn brain—have been documented and discussed by psychologists, neuroscientists, and sociologists.¹
A growing awareness of the negative effects of digital overload (and withdrawal from it, as documented by a 2010 study conducted by the University of Maryland’s International Center for Media and the Public Agenda) has led some institutions to offer physical escape from instant-communications technology. For example, in 2009 Stephens College reintroduced a secular form of vespers that requires students to drop their cellphones at the door. In countless other institutions, professors ask students to turn off communication devices when they enter the classroom. Should libraries consider something similar?
Disconnecting, as it turns out, isn’t easy to do. We are constantly surrounded with connective devices, both our own and those belonging to people around us. Even if we can will ourselves to unplug, how do we ask the same of family, friends, or the person sitting next to us on the bus?
Libraries have a long history of utilizing differentiated spaces in their public areas, so it shouldn’t be that much of a stretch for them to incorporate areas free of digital chatter. In Hamlet’s Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age (Harper, 2010), William Powers advocates for “Walden zones” in the home—disconnected spaces inspired by Thoreau’s experiment to withdraw from society while remaining within it. We suggest that this idea would be a perfectly natural one for libraries. These safe harbors would be free of the external distractions of computers, cellphones, and social networking tools, allowing sustained focus and contemplation.
Of course, barring construction of a Faraday cage, there is no way to control patrons’ use of digital communication tools. If users refuse to turn off their gadgets, the spirit of the Walden zone will fail to materialize. The million-dollar question is, of course, will library users welcome a zone of inwardness—a place to read, reflect, and possibly find meaning? (Some studies indicate that it might.) Or will the shock of self-reliant thought prove overwhelming, even for short periods of time?
AMANDA WAKARUK is government information librarian and MARC TRUITT is associate university librarian for bibliographic and information services at the University of Alberta Libraries in Edmonton.
¹ There are many people writing about this issue in both academic and popular literature, including: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010); Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle (New York: Basic Books, 2011); Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the e-Personality by Elias Aboujaoude (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011); You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010); and The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox by John Freeman (New York: Scribner, 2009).
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Comments
Walden Zone
As the author of the book “Distracted”, a former Boston Globe columnist and library-lover, I think that many users would adore Walden-zones. Notice the headlines and watercooler chatter and talk around the dinner table: it’s all about how we can tame our technologies and recover focus in an overloaded world. People have always used libraries as social centers, as information clearinghouses and as places of quiet. Why should those multiple uses be reduced to a single-use communal space in an age when we increasingly hunger for reflection? And why shouldn’t libraries set aside these Walden spaces? Libraries have public responsibilities - to see that we don’t destroy the gift of the physical book, that we return books so that others may use them, that we use virtual spaces in respectful ways. These public responsibilities can, as the authors suggest, include the setting aside of a quiet refuge for those wanting to work quietly and with concentration. As for monitoring those spaces, why not? In a complex society, we have streetlights and stoplights and sidewalks to make sure the cars and pedestrians can use our streets. Similiar, librarians can be the guardians not only of our information but of a variety of spaces for a variety of patrons. Viva focus!
Are students really so incompetent?
Let me start off by saying although I am offering criticisms of this idea (and without question wholeheartedly disagree with it), I do think it is an excellent point of discussion, and I thank the authors for bringing up this topic. But I would ask the following questions:
Can we really not trust students to make an adult decision like turning off their phone if they don’t want to use it? Are university students so incompetent that they are not able to decide if they want their phone on or off while studying? In an age where libraries are already seriously behind the times in proving users with high-quality content customized for their mobile devices, I don’t think this is something libraries can afford.
I would argue quiet the opposite. Libraries should be creating mobile sites, making apps, utilizing qr codes, and other mobile content as it arises to provide content/information/help to users right on their smartphone or tablet.
In fact I also disagree with professors asking their students to turn their cellphones or mobile devices off at the door. Teachers should be embracing mobile technology into their instruction. It isn’t only libraries, but also professors who are falling behind the times in their pedagogy.
Not just students
Please! Libraries and universities are way ahead of the curve in most places in adopting all kinds of new technologies. But the point here is that new, noisy toys are not the be-all and end-all of learning. In-depth, critical thinking skills require some time and space to develop, and many people are noting that they find fewer places to do that. Even if a student (or anyone else) is able to turn off their own phone, dozens of other people around them playing music, talking loudly on their phones, playing games, texting with beeping keyboards, and all the rest make it impossible for them to find a space to read, reflect, and work without distractions. Far too many people simply lack the common courtesy not to inflict their personal business on everyone else; and the plethora of new devices, and the marketing push to be plugged in every minute, seem to be giving these people ever greater permission to be just plain rude.
Internet/Wifi coverage
“A library without internet and Wi-Fi access is, thankfully, an anomaly.” - this statement doesn’t seem to be entirely accurate, as the ALA’s PLFTAS survey (2010/11) shows that nearly 1 in 5 rural libraries do not currently have wireless available.
Although coverage is higher in urban libraries, approximately 8.5% of urban public libraries did not offer wireless as of the survey (please see figure C-12 in the study for both of the figures I quoted above, available in the American Libraries Summer Digital Supplement).
If the statement had read, “A library without public internet terminals is, thankfully, an anomaly, and Wi-Fi access in libraries continues to increase across the country,” that seems more accurate, as all but 221 U.S. public library systems (out of 9,299) reported offering public Internet terminals as of the 2009 IMLS Library Statistics survey. In my opinion, 100% coverage would be ideal - libraries are essential last-mile broadband providers. Finally, with regard to the thrust of this article, I believe librarians are very good at meeting the needs of their communities, and can be trusted to balance the need for quiet, contemplative spaces and digital access.
(Oops…the 2009 IMLS number up
(Oops…the 2009 IMLS number up there should be 147 libraries reporting no PAC terminals, not 221, I apologize! And I think that might qualify for an anomaly…)
An Unplugged Space
I just read the On My Mind column, “An Unplugged Space” and felt the need to share. I am the director of a small community college in southwestern Indiana. About five years ago I devised a satisfaction/needs survey for our library users to complete. One of the questions I asked was “if the library could provide an additional service to you, what would it be?” An overwhelming number of survey respondents indicated that they wanted a silent space - a space with no electronic gadgets - no talking - no noise. They wanted a space to relax or to read, or to study, or to just contemplate.
We took their suggestion seriously and appropriated a room that connected to the library (that had recently been vacated) and created our “Silent Study Room.” We filled it with various seating combinations - a few small tables, a couple of easy chairs, and some oversize floor pillows, and brought in some plants and hung some artwork. It didn’t take long for students to ‘discover’ this new space. It was an immediate success and still is today. Students respect the space and the purpose for which it was created.
While public libraries
While public libraries provide vital connective spaces, I feel that there must always be unplugged, reflective spaces for us to be quiet, to read, to think. If not libraries, where?
Noise is depleting. While some may consider themselves to be attentive readers among myriad distractions, it remains that people are best able to listen to reading with less distractions. As a rider of public transit who frequently writes and studies on my commute, I have learned to concentrate amidst chaos. However, fewer and fewer public spaces allow for us to simply be quiet, to be attentive to our thoughts, our books, our ruminations.
Libraries are being presented with great opportunities to maintain these reflective spaces for society. It seems that these spaces will be much coveted in the near future once the glitz of social media wears down and people realize their thought patterns have adversely been effected by constant toggling and seeking of the new.
Not so fast
Doing research for a paper on what students want in a school library, I keep coming across the same stuff; computers, a learning commons-type area, places to plug in, versatile furniture….and quiet reading spaces. This is stereotype of the library that I do not mind and it must never totally vanish, and from what I have been reading and hearing, patrons want it to stick around too.
I like Carr’s writing and
I like Carr’s writing and think this is an issue to be mindful of, but I also think the case is somewhat overstated—and, ultimately, I feel the best way to go about maximizing our attention is to be mindful of how we use our own and as a society make sure we’re teaching the next generation how to use theirs. Worrying about who might be distracting themselves, with what, and where might be more paternalistic than helpful.
I also personally think that the beeps, bloops, and click-clacks of computers and mobile phones in a library is a less of a threat to concentration than many feel—people do incredibly focused work in much louder and more randomly-stimulating environments all the time. I’ve found reading a book in a state park often provides just as many serendipitous sights and sounds from nature, and I don’t think that one is inherently easier to tune out than the other. But I will admit that others may have a lower threshold than I do for distraction.
If a library did want to implement such a space, I think enforcement might be easier than you allude to—similar spaces (such as the “quiet cars” on AmTrak) develop rabid devotees, who will often apply peer pressure to maintain the mores of the room.
(Right after posting, it
(Right after posting, it occurred that I seem to be taking issue with everything in your post—to be clear, I like the post and think it’s an important topic to talk about. But I happen to see a lot of other sides I wanted to bring up.)