Sound & Skill-Building: How Libraries Embody “Creativity, Community, Innovation, and Entrepreneurialism” | Reflection Blogging: Week 8 – New Models

Sound & Skill-Building: How Libraries Embody “Creativity, Community, Innovation, and Entrepreneurialism”

Reflection Blogging: Week 8 – New Models

For this week’s reflection blogging on New Models, and especially in conversation with Pam Sandlian Smith’s lecture, I wanted to discuss another interesting feature that some libraries in the U.S. offer its users beyond its traditional library materials that was briefly mentioned in the lecture – recording studios. What underscores a lot of Smith’s conversation is the notion of interaction; not just in a hands-on, tactile sense, but in a profoundly internal and developmental sense. She says, “Libraries are spaces that support creativity, community, innovation, and entrepreneurialism” (TEDx Talk, 00:10:25-00:10:31), and that libraries are true cornerstones of community-building, offering resources to their patrons that may seem outside of the box (like their digital studio – or their herd of goats!) but, in actuality, adhere somewhat strictly to those four interconnected principles.

I find the idea of a recording studio inside a library both delightful and ironic. Even having been a librarian for almost five years now, I still retain that kneejerk conception of the library as a strict, lawful, inflexible space; this idea having been drilled into my head as a child existing in what felt like a unilaterally formal and rule-laden institution – no matter how friendly the librarian, I knew they would not hesitate to shush me if I was being too loud, or reprimand me for mishandling a book. No matter which library I was visiting, anywhere in the world, seven-year-old Mary Joy could count on libraries being quiet and proper. Now, however, having worked with children whose cognitive behavioral know-how has been severely impacted by the pandemic, the notion of a quiet library is truly aspirational – but that’s not the only respect in which libraries have changed.

By this I mean that the spirit of libraries has truly shifted in the quarter-century of my life alone – as quoted in the lecture, “Playing is an accepted part of library behavior… these days. 25 years ago, it was totally forbidden!” (Stephens, 00:06:32-00:06-26). To exemplify this point, allow me to share some libraries that offer their patrons the ability to experiment with sound technologies that I think truly epitomize the creativity-, community-, innovation-, and entrepreneurialism-building essence of the modern library.

Most interestingly, I want to reference the San Jose Public Library’s TeenHQ Recording Studio, not only because it is geographically relevant but also because I find its target audience so exemplary of how libraries make skill-building inclusive. The TeenHQ was a 2016 addition to SJPL. This video provides some wonderful insight into how the teenage audience has been considered and included in the current configuration of the space – through workshops, design, features, and facilities. 

Their recording studio is restricted to middle- and high-school students who have completed a certification course that helps them understand how to handle the equipment available to them in the studio. The course is entirely online, helping cement a theoretical basis for the practical experience of experimenting with different features of the space such as the microphones, sound boards, instruments, and recording interfaces like GarageBand. I want to highlight their list of eight rules students must follow when inside the recording room (on right).

Overall, the studio space is a true boon for teens in San Jose to start learning in a friendly, nonjudgmental environment how to work with sound equipment – which this author would have personally found great use of as a techie in high school musical theater with an extremely remedial grasp on how to balance the casts’ microphone levels with the soundtrack to Shrek: The Musical. 

Other libraries offer similar features, with different target audiences and requirements for use. See, for example, the Studio at the LA Public Library, the E Street Sound Studio at the Central Santa Rosa Library (if you’re in Solano County, like me), and even our very own King Library at San Jose State (though it is temporarily closed for renovation).

To conclude this post, I want to bring this conversation back to Smith. I especially appreciate the notion she put forth that library staff are all “part wizard, part genius, part explorer” (TEDx Talk, 00:06:11 – 00:06-15). While the community is essential to fostering that sense of hygge, it fundamentally begins with library staff being open and willing to make those changes that encourage its patrons to reconceptualize libraries from that severe image I have of libraries from my childhood to what they are now, and what I, as a librarian, am trying to help them become.

References

Los Angeles Public Library. (n.d.). The Studio. Octavia Lab. https://www.lapl.org/labs/octavia-lab/studios

San Jose Public Library. (2016, August 24). TeenHQ now open. [YouTube Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lnEid0OvKo

San Jose State University. (n.d.). Sound studio. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. https://library.sjsu.edu/sound-studio

Sonoma County Library. (n.d.). E Street – sound studio. https://sonomalibrary.org/browse/libraryofthings/estreetstudios

Stephens, M. (2022). Hyperlinked library new models. [Lecture]. https://sjsu-ischool.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=a33699b1-6c88-48f5-b684-af1001336869

TEDx Talks. (2013, December 16). What to expect from libraries in the 21st century: Pam Sandlian Smith at TEDxMileHigh. [YouTube Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa6ERdxyYdo&t=376s