Libraries are often considered part of the service industry, but perhaps it's time for that misconception to go the way of "Shhh!" Rising to the challenge presented by BlackPlanet founder Omar Wasow in his closing remarks at the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) conference in 2007, school librarians have worked to position the media center as an experience rather than a service. Wasow's call to action stemmed from a 1999 book, The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore. In defining five stages of an economy, the book provides a classic example in the coffee industry, which evolved from the commoditization of sacks of beans to the modern java bar, which offers an experience around the consumption of coffee. Libraries, it can be argued, have followed a similar path from early storehouses of information and the delivery of related services to the emergence of an information experience powered by social technologies and now the redefining of libraries as a destination. The next step for libraries? The fifth economic stage in which the customer undergoes a transformation. In their example, Pine and Gilmore point to users learning how to select and roast their own beans by attending courses on coffee. Similarly, transformative libraries can encourage students to engage information and so become more effective, self-aware users. While the business analogy may seem far-fetched, many of these same ideas appear in AASL's "Standards for the 21st-Century Learner". The new standards guide us toward a transformative approach by defining the behaviors and responsibilities to be taught in addition to skills. It is up to us to help our students become lifelong learners by imbuing them with the abilities and practices that will let them succeed. School librarians are on board with this, but recent emphasis on creating a technology-rich experience can unnerve even the most confident among us. Even as we work toward creating a library that provides a rich information experience, we must ensure there's a transformative element, as well. This is made easier by a library environment that is technology rich. Many of the tools that we are using to craft an experience—blogs, wikis, social networks, and the like—will also power the transformative library. For example, wikis are a great way to promote collaborative authoring of content, but when we build a library meta-wiki that includes research guides and student-edited pathfinders, that is transformative. This sounds easy enough, but sometimes unfamiliarity with the technology can be overwhelming. A good strategy is to find tools that have been implemented in other libraries. One such tool is VoiceThread (ed.voicethread.com, a multimedia sharing site where you can upload images or video and then annotate them with text or voice narration. With a protected section for K–12 users, VoiceThread is ideal for student reflection. There are great examples on the site of teachers and librarians using VoiceThreads to create a more participatory experience and facilitate interaction online. But don't stop there. Why not use VoiceThread to walk students through the online resources available at your media center or teach them, step-by-step, how to create a citation. Library 2.0, 3- or 4.0, in the end our goal must be the same as it has always been: to promote student achievement. Pine and Gilmore's almost 10-year-old book helps illuminate our path. Looking back, we can see how libraries have evolved from information warehouses, how we are currently working to create a more user-focused experience, and how we can determine a more transformative future. By focusing on student achievement as the output of a vibrant school library program, we can be the next big thing.

---

Author Information

Christopher Harris is coordinator of the school library system of the Genesee Valley (NY) BOCES.