The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation
Public Libraries
00:00 - 02:51
This clip describes that, even though technology is innovative, it's important to make use of the public space of libraries. It also talks about Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy towards libraries.
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Video Transcript
0:03
imagine yourself inside your favorite Library
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what is the draw for you
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and do you have any idea just how many libraries exist in the United States
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there are over 116,000 libraries in the United States and that's libraries of all types so School libraries public libraries academic special collections
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I didn't even need a card to enter the Lovett library at the Henry Ford in Detroit
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because I was with the Museum's librarian
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Sarah Andres
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who were the driving forces behind
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the introduction of public libraries in America
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it would be very hard to ignore the effect Andrew Carnegie had on public libraries he funded grants
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for libraries in America he was
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Scotchman who came to the United States as a child
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and he had fond memories of
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of libraries in Scotland
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that's where it came from this is one of his great legacies it really is he find it over 1700 libraries and America
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with these grants and several of them are still operating today
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so
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what role do these public libraries take on in
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towns and cities
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they become community spaces you can go there you can get your books but they
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start programming fairly early on so you can take your toddler to story time you can
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look into your genealogy you can do all those things
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in the Civic spaces are important Civic spaces
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even if you're just going there to read quietly in a corner
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yes there's some of the last
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free public spaces
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it seems as if libraries are
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particular magnet for landmark architecture
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they are because you can get people funding huge Library so like the New York Public Library that main branch is such an iconic
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the nation and it was meant to be and then you have major universities you get good donors going in for things like that and that's where you can actually
2:02
put some money I just went on vacation to Columbus Indiana the library there is one of the earliest commissions for IM pei and while we associate libraries
2:14
with preservation of knowledge they're not stagnant in fact there's a concerted effort to keep libraries and their mission current libraries are going
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to continue to grow
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go to serve their communities and they're going to do it in whatever way possible
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you probably still don't use a physical card catalog you use an online catalog now
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I can tell you that they're looking at different ways of how we catalog material to make it more accessible for people the biggest change is going to
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be in that accessibility field and the people that Librarians and the Library community want to feel
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are safe in our spaces and want to
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be able to bring into our profession
