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>> good evening, please take a moment to silence your cell phones. i would like to remind you no flash photography is permitted during tonight's event. a book signing takes place following the event in the library and most of these events are located as podcast. welcome to the free liproprietary of philadelphia. i am excited to introduce john palfrey. he is an advocate for internet freedom freedom. he is the head of the fredricks school and his latest book,

>> he challenge us to investigate ourselves. please join me in welcoming john palfrey to the library. >> thank you for your kind introduction and andy and all of those who welcomed to the free library of philadelphia. i could not be happier to be here to talk about this new book, "bibliotech." there are many reasons why this is a great place tuquealk about this book from the amazing library

history here in philadelphia with ben franklin's role of shaping the library and the free library of philadelphia and many other great institutions. i think in many respects we are at a historic moment when it comes to knowledge and libraries and i think this spans across education, and journalism, and as well as in libraries and i think they are all connected in an interesting way. i think they hinge on the same set of questions about whether in the digital age we can make our institutions as affective for democracy. i think there is a risk there might not be. part of what was driving me to do this project and work on this book "bibliotech," was a series of conversations i have with with people who survived me over the years.

they have gone through this way five or six years ago with ken being the head of the harvard high school library which is probably the biggest one in academic terms. i was a law professor by training so i was not a librarian. there were lots of great librarians there so it wasn't dangerous but my friend were surprised why i was working otat a library so i had the same conversation several times. people would ask what i was up to and i would say teaching at law school but rup running a librarian as well. and people would say you are not a librarian,?librarian? and i would say

yes, and i think libraries are now more important than every but they would take off before i could make the case of why libraries are more important verses less important since the invention of google. so i decided to write a book about how it is more important than ever to have libraries in the digital age. i was inspired by this picture that comes from the image we have at the harvard law school library. i doubt anybody could guess what this is but it is the private library of oliver holmes junior. i love the idea of sitting in the chair in the middle of this room and thinking about mr. justice holmes writing his opinions and for any law

professors in the crowd you be you know he wrote wonderful opinions. he was inspired by all of this knowledge surrounding him in the form of books and you can imagine him grabbing a book reading it sitting down and writing more opinions. and today the principal of andover mass that has kids between the age of 14-18 and i think about what kind of learning environment are we creating for kids look this environment here. what would it be like for these kids to have a place where they are inspired the same way mr. justice holmes was in this moment. i was imagine it would probably not look the same. maybe they too would be inspired by this state but when was a library director it is clear when kids go into library

they don't do a lot of this. at harvard law school library and the library at our high school the libraries are full. tables packed with kids in there doing work and homework but they are not taking a lot of books off the shelf. they have their computers and maybe a book they were assigned but they not there for the stacks. the question is if the point isn't to be a collection of books of physical objects how do we make just as inspiring and wonderful a space when in fact much of the information is not located in the physical form. the reason people come to the library is not necessarily for the objects and i think that is an important challenge for us to meet. the other part of the public challenge is there is a public view that libraries are not as necessary. this as a common quote i found on the amazon page of the book i wrote. it someone who commented and

didn't seem to like the book for a variety of reasons and one is he disagreed about the importance of the library writing they are on their way out and being squeezed until they cannot provide service. it is not particularly uncommon to be in a town and city and see the pressure on the libraries. at a local level, where most of the funding comes from we know you have to make a decision in a local budget between supporting the fire department police department, schools or library. and my view is that the money is so short to support a library and the payback is so great it is a crazy think to cut the libraries but we know the pressure comes every year on libraries. i was so glad to see the foundation supported this library with $25 million but that is private people stepping forward as opposed to a big city grant. you look at the state level and there is a lot of pressure on libraries. i gave a tack about this book in

kansas city at the wonderful kansas city public library. there a week or so before the governor was making a plan to cut the state funding for libraries and 75 young people went up and did a sit-in in the governor's office and thrown out by the state police which was exciting but it was a showdown of state funding. and a junior or high school was one of the kids involved in that protest and excited to be acting in civil disobedience for libraries. at the federal level, even president obama who i admire in some respects his budgets have included cuts at the federal level for funding for libraries. so we have pressure in all directions on libraries. and more need than ever for their services in a democratic institution. how do we make a positive environment for libraries in this digital age?

that is important for our democracy. i think it all goes back to why we had free libraries to begin with. and in this country, a lot of had history dates back to the middle of the 19th century. this image is from boston public library, which is my local library library, and the most important part is if you can see above the door you can see theoriesse amazing words saying free to all. the whole point is no matter how much money you have or your edge education you shall be able to educate yourself and learn all of this. the entire movement for libraries kicked off in our country around this time. this is the free library in

philadelphia a few years rater in american history but growing from a very similar civic pride and importance in our country. and the carnegie libraries is another expansion of this. we are at another moment when we have to think about the next chapter for public libraries. and the reason i think that is so crucial is that increasingly the knowledge we create in our society is held not in physical format but in the cloud. it is not to say we will not have books. that is not the argument. i think this particular technology is a great one of physically holding the material in this format but clearly when we create information it is primarily created in a digital

format and accessed not through the physical format but devices that are increasing mobile and cloud-based. crucial to the part of the story is those who hold the knowledge in the cloud are private actors. if you look at the names in any image of the cloud it is almost all private companies. there are not public spaces online in the same way they are in the analog and physical world. i think this matters because if we don't keep information in public hands, knowledge in public hands and provide access on a free to all bases in the digital era i think it could make the problems between the haves and have nots. imagine if libraries over give information to access online when many who have access to funds can buy whatever they want and bring it on their kindle.

that is not a great outcome for libraries. it is not a crazy potential problem. a few years ago in particular those who work in libraries know there have been a series of tussles between publishers and libraries about trying to figure out what is the bases we will lend electronic books to individuals. out of curiosity how many people here if they were to read a involve prefer the printed form? a very strong majority. how many people prefer an e-book? >> depends on how big the book is. >> how many people are happy to read it in either format? a couple people. i am in the third category. at night i like to be like this in my bed side table. but if i am on a plane from boston to here it is easier to

have the books on the kindle. it is wonderful except when the battery dies or you are taking off and landing and can't use it. the growth is in the third category. people who often like digital books and physical books and people who buy a lot of digital books tend to buy a large number of physical books. publishers are worried about what their business model is going to look like and many publishers have not allowed libraries to lines on the same terms. particularly the most valuable and sought after books in the first run. librarians are in the difficult position. in the future will they do the same things they did in an analog era. when you think about lending out books that is a wonderful right.

once they buy the book you can do anything you want. tear it up give to someone else sell it at a bookstore and librarians have very broad rights what they want to do. in the digital world it is not so. they go from owner do is leasers and if librarians stop paying the license to the book publishers they might not even have a collection. so it is a very different world. one of the e-book was you cannot read it aloud. that is kind of silly. an early agreement between publishers and libraries and in that plan the libraries were told you may lend it 26 times if

you buy it. the premise is on the 26th time it would go away. that rule has not held up particularly as the way e-books are sold. this is a preverse outcome and not a great version of the future in the digital era where there is more potential for access we have less access. seems like we need to figure out how to head that off. the exciting part is it is moment where we can design a bright future and imagine a different future to build from. this image is the boston public

library and you can imagine a similar building of this particular one we are in here. and why i like this moment is i think as we were 150 years ago at a moment where we can figure out what we want to future of libraries to be when it is a combination of digital and analog. i think if we step forward and invest we can create something vastly better than what we had in the past and builds upon the best of what librarians have done and what is happening in silicone valley and on the web that has brought us broad access and developments in technology. we have to think like designers and build like innovators in new and exciting ways. i often think about this particular design which is the building that i worked in at harvard law school. this is the side of the hall and if you imagine what it was like

to build a great library like this one you can image imagine the process bringing together architects and teachers and librarians and students and people who would use it and you imagine what a space for teaching people to come in and do their work, and you think about these environments and we are at a similar moment for libraries in the digital future where we need to bring together the information architects of the digital age with the librar librarians and users today and people who have designed physical and digital spaces. i think this is a moment where we can make something that is really really exciting. if you scroll back a little over a century you may know of the language in the charter for this particular institution the free library of philadelphia. & it said there was a commitment to build the free library of

philadelphia for the use of people. general library that is free to all. from my mind this is the moment to pivot to building something, an institution and a set of systems that will support the public in a similar way only in a digital era. and several years ago a group of people came together and this happened at rat cliff. a group of 40 people said what we want to do for the future is to build something. it draws on libraries to educate and inform and empower everyone. this sounds like a crazy naive thing to say on some level but i think it is a similar historic commitment that had undergurd

this. so you might say that sounds really good but what in fact do we need to do to create such a thing and i think in a way we need to step back and say what are the elements of a library in a digital age and what do we need to create that is supportive of libraries. not a replacement of what happens in a physical space like this but something that will support it. clearly the most important thing in libraries is the librarian. i think about "bibliotech" and i wrote it as a love letter to libraries as institutions and librarians as people because i think the people who work in libraries and serve our society whether it as a research library at a university or public library like this one are providing a service in our society and i think some of the best teachers in school are the

school librarians who support in the kids trying to learn digital techniques or research. i think it is ultimately about training and development of humans. but it is thinking about libraries structurally in a different way. one argument i make in the book and think we need to pivot toward is to stop thinking about libraries as individual institutions that are competitive with one another and see them as platforms in a networked world. this may sound like technology jargon and to some extent it is. but i think it is important tech nilogical speak but i think in this moment one thing libraries can do best, is draw on other aspects of innovation in our society. i think there has been so much amazing developments whether in silicone valley or places with large commitments in the technology world to develop things that libraries actually

haven't done. i think if we take the same tech techniques that made the internet and web so powerful and apply them with the kinds of skills and commitments librarians have i think we can make something terrific and do it in a highly colablaborative way. if you think about libraries all collecting objects in a competitive way -- when i was a libearian at harvard it it was like if we had the biggest stack we were the best. i think that is an old way to think about it. in thinking about the digital public library of america we are thinking about building a system that supports all libraries and brings material and people together in a way that is productive. this is the most technical the

slides get but this is describing an open system with lots of open codes that can be shared in a way that accesses information that comes from all libraries and anybody can export that information to serve different parts of commutes. four years after the commitment to make an online national library, which we did you can go to dpla and access the library. it has contributions from 1600 institution institutions from around the country. it is exciting because it has drawn upon many of the big institutions in the country. the national archive has materials there and big libraries like new york public library and university of

virginia has millions of objects to share in this way and any library and any person can take these materials and download them and do whatever they want with the particular materials through the website or otherwise. ultimately, we are seeking to build something that will be a truly national resource. you can see from this map that that the map of the country is filling up. the notion is for every state we hope to have a hub to allow people to digitalize material and share them on a national bases and a third of the country is covered with sfattate hubs. you will notice pennsylvania is a hub in development. we are hoping this library and others in the state will have a mode for digitizing the unique resources here and share them on a national level. let me give you an example from massachusetts which is lit up in the red color over there. in massachusetts, there is a state-wide system run from the

boston public library called the digital commonwealth. the notion is there are 351 cities and towns and we want to enable any institution if you a local historically society or individual or school like phillips academy where i work, you can say come to our historical society and bring what you think it is unique and scan them and libraries at the meta data and it goes into the state-wide system and with the digital public library of america and then into national system so the little collections around the country can be pulled up into this national system and accesst from anywhere. you can imagine it is an exciting idea and the cultural resources from all around the country can be accessed in the

same way and you might think that is the way it is. it turns out the way we have been digitalizing materials it is hard to access things held in these hands. we spent millions digitalizing the harvard sections but it is hard to find them. one of the dreams that i have is that the digital public library will have a system where you can scan and go. i didn't think this about but the idea behind this goes that we would get winnebagos and outfit them with scanners in the back and you can imagine retired librarians or volunteers or students driving across the country in the cars and they would pull up saying bring out your scans and people bring out unique photographs or books or images and they would get scanned in the back and the

librarian or the person driving it could figure out who is in the meta data and you can imagine the rights of driving this. i have written a letter to the head of the winnebago company who was not written me back so we might have to call it the airstream something or other. but you get the point. there is across our country, this amazing store of knowledge and information and in the digital digital age there is no reason it has to be cooped up and local and i think we could have a resource that would combine what is in the great libraries like the free library of philadelphia and the new york library and national archives and the harvard university library and the pennsylvania university

library. it would be like creating that digital library of alexandria that people have thought about. i think it could be something that would not replace any libraries but supplement and something any library like this one could car cureate and take advantage of what is left in other hands. the notion is to create something that will amplify the work of libraries. i think the idea is to improve upon some of the things that have been wonderful in the analog area. one of the fears i think many of us have is that we transition from the analog era to the digital era that we will lose some of the ways we learned in the past. one of those examples is the idea of serendipity so you may have one of the lovely images of going into the stack with a call number and looking around at the amazing books and if you are

anything like me you would see the book you are after but then you would see books over here and over here and as you walk out your arms full of books you come out with nine books but only had the call number for one. this amazing idea of getting into a space and the information is well-organized and you have curiosity in your brain you cannot help but learn these things. you may think the same thing about "the new york times" like when you read a story here you didn't know you were interested but the information was presented in a way that serendipity informs you. if you think about the digital era that can go away if you took the books off the shelves and there were no stacks you might lose all of what was around the book. that is one fear. another fear people have is that

maybe what would in fact be presented as the other things in the serendipity environment would be created by a private company as opposed to buying my brand. if you think about the recommendations coming from are amazon or netflix. that is very different than having scholars in the field and knowledgeable librarians thinking about how to array information for you. all of that said, i think it is possible that in a digital era we can do just as well if not better, if we think about clever ways to array information and present it in a way that is just as good. this is just one tiny example of that called stack viewer stack life. this is an application that has been built to work with the digital public library of america and it is meant to address the question of serendipity saying can we create a digital browsing environment that might be different but in a positive way and bring

serendipity back into the environment. the example is of somebody coming to the harvard collection of books and searching on thomas pension's gravity rainbow. so think of a graduate student doing this search and one of the interesting things about harvard's law system is there is 73 different libraries. in this city there is a main library and i think you have 61 branches and you have the library company of philadelphia and you have penn and drexel and lots of different libraries. so there is ultimately not one stack so we love the idea of serendipity but there is not one place for all of these books. but digitally you could create this and show all of the things available. you think about in new york city there are three different library systems. there is queens, brooklyn and all of the new york publics. so you could show in a digital space all of what is available. if you did it well you could

use some of the great information, the meta data, the libraries have about the data/books. and you can array the information in clever ways. in this particular case the way these books are arrayed is based in part on circulation data. so it looks at the book and says how many times has a particular book been circulated and you might want a book no one picked up in a hundred years or you might want to know which version was checked out most recently and then you can say when book was checked out by professors or as a graduate student when one has been checked out by graduate students the most time. another example you might think of would be going into a library and wonder which version of the "iliad" should i read and

you can imagine adding lots of intelligence to make browsing experience more effective and not just what amazon is trying to sell to you but something that is customized to your particular needs. is this going to be better than the stacks? it doesn't have the must and the dust smell. but if we were to unleash the interesting power of innovation and think clearly about what communities need i actually think we could create something that is just as good if not better to supplement what happens in physical spaces and i think that is what is excited about where we are headed. ultimate ultimately i think libraries need to think about solving problems people have in communities. i think this is happening in the best of libraries and in the best of digital libraries and the best of physical libraries. i think it is about creating

infrastructure and a digital infrastructure that will support what is happening in physical spaces and connect those two in interesting ways to align what libraries do with what communities ultimately need. here in philadelphia i think you are doing this incredibly well. the 21st century initiative is resulting in spaces here and doing an inquiry on the needs of philadelphia that we can meet with a digital space and the transformed physical space and calling on organizations to give funds to the team and figure out how to transform libraries in a way that is useful. i think part of what we will find is we don't need just the

digital space and applications but we need amazing physical spaces. places that inspire people bring us together, and into an environment connected by ideas. this is from a place outside of boston. the adams library which was the presidential family, the adam's library. i think it is one of the most beautiful spaces out there. and i think it would be a shame as we make the transition we didn't have these spaces. it is about combining the best of the physical with the best of the digital ultimately. but i think what will bring people into these rooms, these beautiful rooms, is not just the architec architec architec architecture. there are reference books on the table and i think some of the things libraries have done to draw people into a space, for instance for reference, those things are going to go away.

i think the greatest references are going to be wikipedia and things online. it is not to say that is perfect but it has the potential to be the best in the world. i think in ways to imagine to cooperate, build and make the online spaces as good as possible but not relying on pulling people in the spaces. i think to take an image from the library company of philadelphia it is also important to recognize the amazing amazing amazing preservation role that libraries play and the essential role libraries play toing our society and that is preserve our cultural and historical record. one experience i had as a library director was being surprised on multiple occasions publishers came to me to ask for

access to physical books they had because they wanted to digitize them and i would say why are you coming to me i am a library don't you own the book? and the publishers says we own the rights but don't hold versions of the books we published. part of this was they had acare critical role but they are not the long-term servers who should be preserving our history. so insuring we have intuitionstitutions that will be here for hundreds of years like the boston public library or the big universities libraries. we need those players to be in this same business to insure we have historical and cultural

record over time. at the same time, i think we should do this not just in the local context. i argued that libraries should be serving local needs and i think we can do this in a global environment in a way that is very very powerful. as we create local institutions and state institutions and build a national digital library system i think we should do so in a global environment and recognize that if we imagine a series of digital libraries on a national scale we can imagine them connecting to one another. the first thing in creating the digital public library of america. we get the first agreement we reached with europe which is a system in europe that is taking all of the national libraries cropping up around europe and making sure when we digitize materials and they digitize material we have a similar system so someone can search across the systems. and the point is not to make

everyone of these national digital library systems the same but make them interoperable so they believe work together. the first exhibit we created wasn't just a national exhibit for the u.s. but it was joint with europe and looked at immigration and the progress of someone going from the new world to the old or the old world to do now. i don't think we have to build a worldwide library. i think that would be impossible and we would never agree. you think about how the united nation works and how slow that goes. but instead of having 200 libraries exactly the same around the world at a national level we can agree on certain things and make sure somebody who is searching across them can actually find the information they need so a global vision can be highly interoperable and connected without being the same. we can have the benefits of diversity while having the benefit of interconnection.

this is a map of utopia and my sense is that it would be great for us to have the utopian library of the future. i am not naive enough to think that. but i would urge us to think about what we think the future of libraries ought to be and seek to build toward that rather than to have various forces press in on libraries. so my view is if we can imagine what would be an incredible democratic serving version of the digital library in an analog world and build toward that as much as possible that that would be the soundest way to go and the soundest way for our democracy. as we proceed i think it is crucial it be done in collaboration. i think this is a key to success for libraries that we don't compete as institutions but agree to work together. and i think a great deal turns on this moment and our ability to figure out how to create

something that is a system as opposed to a tearseries of stand alone institutions. i am convinced we can create a library system that is greater as a whole than the sum of its parts and i am sure having a system rather than make the gap between the have and have nots week create something that is better for democracy than we had in the past and i hope you will join me in building it. thank you so much. [applause] >> i hope if you have questions, disagreements, or other things we can bring you a mike. >> one question, in england when someone takes out a book the author gets something back for that and i know with the internet one of the biggest

problems is the people who create the work are loosing money. so is there something -- >> it is a super important question. i think in whatever eco system we create it is essential that authors get paid for their work. i think it would be a terrible system if somebody couldn't try to make a livelihood as an author. i believe librarians can be huge support for that. so the collection budget for libraries that are supported by public funds, i think, should continue to do that. no version of this future in my mind should be one where authors are not paid for their work. i think publishers should be paid and have a role in the system. i think there should be a public option at some point. i believe libraries should compensate authors on a sustainable bases. i think you can imagine a

digital world with a per-lend bases. if my book is lent ten times and someone else's book was out a hundred times and i get paid less that is fine. there are a series of systems designed so-called alternative systems that could work on that bases and that is part of the moment we are in. is there going to be a business model that sustains authors and publishers n great way. i would say there is one zone we would change the model and that would undercut publishers. i think we should go to open access model for scholarly work. many people here may work in a university setting and some universities took a pledge

saying when you publish an article it should be available on the open web particularly paid for by non-profit funds. i think the good for democracy and change would vastly outweigh the cost of doing this. >> i am an academic librarian and my question is about copyright. i guess have a couple. it sounds like dtle is an incredibly noble project and i am ready to sign up. but in dealing with our access policy there is two giant strangleholds. i think one is copyright and dealing with copyright because i think that has put handcuffs on scholarship and access to materials. and the other is the

consolidation of media outlets and television radio, all of that. so how is that impacting what you are doing and what is your strategy for overcoming this? >> i think that is a great question. in many of the conversations about the future of knowledge and incopthe copyright is the elephant in the room. it is a difficult topic. let's take your moment about the question and journals and open access and the consolidation of publishers. one of the big concerns is the cost of getting access to scholarly journals which run in the $10s of thousands of dollars a year. there is some value added but the talent is out of the university or research committee in fact the entire process is in

some ways like that. if you are in a field and write agwrite a scholarly article, you get a grant, you do the work yourself and publish the article who is reviewing and editing your article? it is peer reviewed. then it is a for-profit that is publishing it. you have say who is paying the lines license to the publishers? again it is the academic libraries. so this strange environment has been created in which the talent that creates it is the author in this case a professor paid for by the university the talent that edits is another professor at another yufrnt universities, the talent that acquires it is the library and the one making the money is the

for-profit publishers. so the first instance would be for the academics to say we will not publish this way or at a minimum we will publish this way but require a version to be made open access and the national in institute of health has been helpful with this way and other universities. and i hope every university takes the open access pledge. you are always agreeing to make a version on the web open access. so if someone can't afford tens of thousands of dollars for the journal they don't have to.

the place where it is trickiest is in books which is particularly for the books that are in the modern era and they are the books where no one is going to agree with open access and authors agree to get compensated. i didn't need money or get paid to write them. authors do need money. that is a different arrangement and it would require different for this. you point to the gnarly topics and there is more we can do with the copyright regime than we do today. >> my question is this is a library and education in general

and in a typical library if it were done right, if we teach with creativity and courage, and humility, and not to mention the integrity. >> if i understood the question correctly it goes to how we can teach creativity and rigor and so forth in this new environment. as an educator i could not agree with you more that part of what why need to do is insure our students and young people are encouraged to think in a very broadway and a creative way and an innovative way. i think one thing we imagine is our kids are able to do this inituteively and they know how to work the i-phone better than us or use the web better than

us. they may have easy facility they need literal support to use it in more sophisticated ways. that is one of the reasoning i think human beings are essential to the whole picture and that is true if that is a digital or analog environment. i had an experience during writing of this book that i went to different libraries and sat in different places to be inspired as i wrote it. i was near the local library toward me and i sat there on a day in which a bunch of students came in in the middle of the afternoon and streamed passed me and were doing a project on terminal slaws velocity and the guy turns to siri and said what was terminal velocity mean? and it had no idea.

and i was thinking that librar librarian knows and she can teach you where to find it. so i think having humans whether it is digital environment or physical environment, it is crucial to the question of being creative and innovative. i think sometimes the role of the librarian is going to shift in the digital era to doing different things and guides in a different way than they have been in the past. >> thanks for your interesting discourse. >> thank you for coming. >> thank you very much. i want to inquire with the curtailing and the erratadication of the public schools and libraries i wanted to ask you if you found any information or what the future of public school libraries will look like? >> what a great question. i think that in the context of

my study i talked to a bunch of people who work in school libraries and they are such inspiring people working in the libraries. if you think about the scale of a school libraries in the united states they are on the order of 125,000 libraries period. more than a 100,000 of them are school libraries. so the bulk of the libraries are public school libraries in the coapt country. and you can find schools with great school libraries have higher performance academically among their kids. you can make the argument this is only a correlation and not causation and it is hard to prove causation. but at a minimum it is a strong correlation. if you were running a school why in the world would you cut out the school library. it is not a lot of money. it is a great person who can play a lot of roles into the school and do a huge amount of teaching that is important for kids. these are some of the best

teachers for schools at the school and principle we have an amazing library and they are some of the best teachers on our faculty. why would you cut them from the equation? i am a huge supporter and there is no question school libraries have major role to play going forward. >> i am really loud. >> this is being recorded so good. >> i am a high school librarian and i think we are at this pivotal part -- i am in new jersey and i think we have asked to become the leaders in technology in your school and asked for more and more technology and we have finally gotten.

we are proctoring exams and if we are not the library is shuttered because it is filled with students taking digital test and it used to take a best. 2200 kids take a week to administer the first half. and i don't know if there is how we can advocate better to maintain the role in the library and it isn't just new jersey with standardized testing to move libraries more toward struggling to find our role and keep our foot in the door.

i think we are the best resource in the library. and when you know the advent of technology turns us into a computer lab verses a library. >> you raised a good point. i think partly what is going on is two things. it sounded like the story sounded out well and you made a good argument and had en enlightened leadership. at the same time there is this front train running through the story which is the commitment to standardized test taking over the education system in a not-good way. we have next week coming to our school a woman who wrote a book called the test and she is coming to talk about this. it is a great book. vastly better than my book is this book called the test. you should read it. it looks like the question of why we are committed to standardized testing. it is a very critical look but

it gets at some of the reasons society is behind it. having a speaker come to her town might be a way to do it. i think there is something deeper than what you are getting out and this is something i fear for all libraries which is if they turn into nothing more than a community center where if is only a venue to have events where it is unrelated to the work i think that is a loss. so i think keeping the connection of teachers connectors, and kids to ideas is so essential. and i hope during the other weeks out of the year that you are able to make that case. but i completely see the tension you are pointing to. i think it goes to this notion of figure out what the role is. it is a positive version of this and people can understand and see the value and connection

with what kids do. one particular thing, if you are thinking about the test in specifics is the common core has a whole lot around media skills and it seems who is better than teaching that than you guys. if you have to embrace the whole testing thing then one option might be to say we are the best teacher at this and have that be a key part. but that is more of a strategic and tactical question than it is resolving the problem. >> we think we are valued because students evaluate sources and things like that but it is a real challenge when the resources get lost. >> you are crucial. >> we think we are. but we would like the testing to go on elsewhere and take shorter periods of time. >> i suspect lots of teachers and families will agree with you and i think that is making an

important argument separately. the test is a good answer. anything else? >> i am a librarian, too. i am curious about what classification system you are using? i assume it must be standardized. >> there was a fun, two year period where i went across the country and saying if we were doing this, how do we come up with something that is simplified and common core was part of that. the idea is having something standardized but allows for flexibility over the time knowing we will not know what it going to be needed. amazing enough the group did come together around a data

model and we agreed on the model with european and others and i was a little surprised it worked out okay but it has. and i expect there will be continued negotiations related to that. we had to come to common agreements on licensing and what bases we will accept them.

our libraries do a good job keeping them around for their children. do you have any advice for board members what kind of arguments can we bring to the table to help us convince our public officials that those categories matter in the community? >> this is a perfect one to end on because i wrote this book for other people trying to make the case and very specifically for people like you who are board members and are in decision-making positions.

that is exactly the point of this book and i hope it proves to be useful for you and i bet you can borrow it from your local public library if you don't wish to buy it or you can go to your local bookstore. it is the core of my argument that these are in store nearly important topics. for towns that have extremely short funds i think it would be an economic model that would just be made up but the purpose and importance of these libraries to people who are seeking jobs, our children, our seniors, and people who are trying to do creative things. i think public libraries