Gresham library turns to technology as the information age forces change – but it's still about books

By Larry Bingham, The Oregonian

March 22, 2010

The modern library serves multiple needs, including giving teens a place to hang out after school. Checking MySpace at Rockwood are (from left, clockwise) Jelenisol Lopez, 13; Jesus Paz, 12; Laura Paz (on the phone), 13; Angeles Ramirez, 14; and Jessica Garcia, 12 (holding the mouse). More than two hours before the Rockwood Library opens at noon on a Tuesday, someone knocks on the back door. Interim manager Kylie Holland answers but has to return to the door a few moments later to let in someone else.

By 10 a.m., five of the six seats in the Cyber Seniors Computer Class, a primer that includes “mousercise” exercises, are taken. Two young men, one Latino and one Asian, sit quietly among the seniors. An elderly man in the back says he doesn’t know how to turn on the laptop in front of him.

Outside the meeting room, a library page shelves books as two clerks wearing white cotton gloves to protect their hands scan bar codes on DVDs and CDs. In the course of this ordinary day, more than 800 items go in and out of this building and more than 600 people pass through its doors, from seniors and new immigrants learning to use computers to children looking for somewhere safe and dry to hang out after school to U.S. Census representatives reaching out to Spanish-speaking newcomers.

Like many institutions that disseminate information, libraries have evolved as the Internet and technology rapidly wrought monumental change. But even as public libraries struggle to adjust, the recession has squeezed organizations funded primarily by county and city governments looking to cut costs and make up deficits.

More than 7,000 library professionals from around the nation descend this week on Portland for the national Public Library Association convention, where technology and the economic crisis are on the agenda. One thing to discuss is how to advocate in local communities, “to gain the recognition that we are a big part of the solution to this current recession,” says the association president, Sari Feldman. “We are helping people get back to work, and we’re helping to educate people.” Read more>>