Friday 15th AM: Customs House Library – City of Sydney Libraries
Reflection
Photo: D.Hogg
The stated purpose of the City of Sydney library at Customs House is “supporting individual and collective learning to build successful communities”. This library acknowledges a diverse community and caters to their diverse needs. This particular branch’s location means they serve both the local population and significant numbers of “drop-ins” who are visitors to Circular Quay.
Our visit was particularly useful to learn about a library that has travelled much further down the eResources path of a public library. They have a large eBook collection of over 9000 titles, offer a wide range of eMagazines (over 150 titles using Zinio with over 4000 loans per month), eNewspapers (3000 titles using PressReader), eDatabases and a new service in eAudiobooks (launched 2 weeks prior to our visit).
The selection of materials for this library is outsourced to PeterPal – a full service including shelf ready physical copies. This service is evaluated every six months.
While this library maintains some traditional roles of storage and organisation of knowledge, it also has new roles – outreach, information literacy, lifelong learning, decision making tools and access to technology. It is also a hub for information dissemination – in-library, online and across locations.
The presentation here also hinted at some of the skill set needed by current and future library professionals. The importance of networking leads to “what social media do you have experience with?” and the establishment of a makerspace introduces the skill set of 3D printers, coding and maker knowledge. This library is reinventing their purpose in order to transform and cater for the needs of their clientele, and staff are being required to adapt to those changing needs. This is reflected in how staff are required to actively engage with library users and take inquiry to the next level of customer service.
This was a great library to finish the four days of the Sydney Study Visit. The group had achieved much more connection to each other and to the spaces we had visited and there was some great sharing of impressions and information to round off a fascinating opportunity.
Please pass on my thanks to Tahnee and the team for a fabulous four days of learning.