By Jon Bishop
jbishop @sentinelandenterprise.com
GARDNER — Libraries can no longer merely be curators of books, Fitchburg State University Professor Michael Greenwood told the Massachusetts Friends of Libraries and Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners Saturday.
Greenwood, who spoke at the Levi Heywood Memorial Library for the “Friends Sharing with Friends” meeting, said libraries and their support organizations must focus on thinking like entrepreneurs.
“This is what the world needs today,” he said.
Because the world has undergone a paradigm shift — moving into the information and technological age — so too must libraries adapt, he said.
“We need to start looking at our readers as customers — customers of information,” he said, adding that libraries should develop ways to collect information about what users enjoy and what they like to do. “What can we do to contribute to learning success?”
Thus libraries should focus on being both information and community hubs, he said.
“Let’s think of ourselves as an information provider,” said Greenwood, who writes “To Your Success,” a weekly column in the Sentinel & Enterprise.
Thinking with an entrepreneurial focus will allow them to see things in a different way, he said.
“There is a world of ideas out there,” he said.
Still, he said, the importance of reading has not been diminished. Due to constant use of phones and other devices, many people today are “learning in staccato.”
Reading seriously and developing a culture of reading prevents that, he said. As a child, heading to the library and picking up books “opened my world.”
“The gift of reading for comprehension, about ideas that are different than our own…helps our society remain strong in the face of change,” he said.
“Without libraries, what do we have? We have no past, no future. That’s what Ray Bradbury said,” Greenwood said.
Libraries must recognize all of this and be “troublemakers,” he said, pointing out that this is what entrepreneurs do.
“It is now your time,” he said.
Attendees said they enjoyed his talk.
“I thought it was great,” said Alice Welch, president of the Massachusetts Friends of Libraries, adding that libraries can use the ideas Greenwood presented. “They have to adapt.”
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