For episode 19 of The Voice of the People podcast, Nicholas Quallich spoke with North Dakota State Librarian Mary Soucie.
NORTH DAKOTA (KXNET) — For episode 19 of The Voice of the People podcast, Nicholas Quallich spoke with North Dakota State Librarian Mary Soucie. They spoke about the current state of libraries, how many people still go to libraries, how well they are thriving in the digital age, and more.
Here is a transcription of the podcast:
Nicholas Quallich: Hello and thank you for joining us for the Voice of the People podcast here on KXnet.com. I’m Nicholas Quallich and today we’re talking about libraries and who better to talk about that subject than North Dakota’s state librarian, Mary Soucie. Mary, thanks for joining me.
Mary Soucie: Thanks for having me. Excited to talk to you.
Quallich: Thank you. I appreciate that. So, first of all, what’s so exciting about being a librarian?
Soucie: Oh, gosh. So many things. I’ve been a professional librarian 30 years this year, so it’s changed a lot. Thank you. It’s changed a lot. But the one thing that hasn’t changed is that libraries make a difference in people’s lives every single day through so many different ways that we do that, we meet their information needs, we meet their personal enrichment needs, we help with education, we build literacy, we answer medical questions, and we still do all of that. We just do it in a slightly different way than we used to. But so if I had to, in a nutshell, say it’s the ability to impact people’s lives.
Quallich: I would hazard a guess for what the biggest difference, but I suspect most people at home know what it is. So, what’s the biggest difference between when you started off as a librarian to now?
Soucie: It would be technology. I started in libraries when we actually had physical card catalogs, and we used to have catalog cards and type-up cards for every book that we put. Every book that got put in the collection or every item that got put in the collection had three different catalog cards typed up for it. You know, now you enter it once in the computer and people can access it remotely. We provide eBooks 24-7, so the library truly is never closed, barring technical difficulties.
Quallich: Yes, technology’s great when it works, as I always say. One of the reasons we wanted to talk to you this week, following the North Dakota primary election, is because not only does a library have the ability to, you know, be available to those people seeking modern-day information, they also have the ability to, you know, house information going back years upon years. So now with that said, of course, you know, the, I guess if you want to call it the competition that a library faces is the ability to have some of that information at people’s fingertips right here.
Soucie: Right.
Quallich: So, tell me about the current state of libraries when it comes to sort of working in synchronous and maybe trying to compete against modern-day technology.
Soucie: Sure. Well, one of the things I like to say, and this is not original to me, but Google will bring you a million answers, the librarian will bring you the right one. We still help people sift through. There’s so much information out there, information overload. There is information that’s credible and information that’s not, and the librarian can help you figure out are you looking at a credible source of information. So that’s one big difference there. The other thing that I say when people ask that question, we answer less reference questions than we used to, but the questions that we get require more in-depth answers. So, I think we do less of the sort of directional reference, less of the surface level reference, a lot more in-depth reference, a lot more helping people get past that first page of the Google answers when they look for it. The other difference, I think, is even though you can have a book at your fingertips from Amazon or any number of sources, you still don’t know what to read next. So we’re still the best source to say, I like this, this, and this about this book. I didn’t like, you know, I didn’t like this piece of this book. Can you help me find my next read? So that to me is no different. We just have different tools. Before you had to rely on our brains and the kind of books that we like to read. Now we have tools like Novelist, which anyone in North Dakota can access through the state library, their local public library card. And you can type in an author or a title or a series and click read-alikes and you can get a list of books that are similar to the book that you love that will take you down the path to your next read.
Quallich: Now, of course, books aren’t the only thing housed in libraries. And I wanted to ask you, you know, there’s in recent years, there has been sort of a speculative attitude towards information sources, namely how reliable they are. So how have libraries weathered that storm, would you say?
Soucie: I think two ways. One, as I mentioned, we do a lot of training on how to spot credible information versus less credible. People use the terms misinformation and disinformation and there’s definitely that is out there. But the other thing is that we provide access to credible resources. We call them here at the State Library online library resources. A lot of our local libraries call them databases. And so we provide access to information that has been vetted, that has already been tested to make sure that it’s good information. So, it’s not just typing in Google and getting whatever answer, you know, that someone has paid sponsorship for. We’re actually providing information based on your needs, not based on how someone has or skewed the Google, it’s not called a rubric, but my brain just totally froze on me. The algorithm, the algorithm, right? And there’s no way to know what that algorithm is and why things rise to the top. So I think just still the access to those credible resources has not changed.
Quallich: Now, one of the other reasons for more filters, shall we say, on your end is you are an entity you represent receive funding from the government. So you have to, like I said, add on that other filter. So speaking of money, what are some of the obstacles you face when trying to get as many resources, namely books, and now you’re dealing with electronic books. What are some of the obstacles you kind of have to go through to make sure you stay up to date as much as the library can?
Soucie: Sure. And something that a lot of people don’t realize is there’s copyright law. People know that, right? And so part of copyright law is you can’t write a book that I take a portion of and pass it off as my own. But there’s another piece of copyright law that says publishers cannot charge libraries more than they’re charging the general public for physical materials. It hasn’t caught up with the e-world yet. So a book that you could go out to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, you know, all those target, all those online places you can go to buy an e-book, Apple, whatever, and let’s say you pay $20 for it, the library is paying $60 or $80 for that title, or we’re paying less, but then we only get it for 26 checkouts. Once 26 patrons have checked it out, we lose access, and if we want to continue to provide access, we have to purchase it again. In essence, we’re licensing the books rather than purchasing the books like we do with our physical copies. So that causes some challenges. We could buy five physical books for what we’re paying for one e-book. Audiobooks have always been way more expensive than e-books. Books on CD, if you go back to when I started in the world, books on cassette, right? But e-audiobooks are even more expensive and there’s starting to be some legislation in different states around the country to address this. There’s only, I believe there’s only one state that has passed the legislation, but there’s three or four that are considering it to say that publishers can’t upcharge libraries for access to the materials. When we first started purchasing e-books, we used to have unlimited use. And we paid more for that, and that was okay. But now we’re paying more, and we get a limited amount of use out of it, and then we have to repurchase it. So that has caused a challenge, especially to our small rural libraries, that I would say, I would argue no library has enough of a budget, but especially in our small and rural areas where their budgets are so tight. And we are in a shared consortium to provide e-materials. The state library joined it a couple of years ago. And that makes our dollars go a lot farther because we don’t have to duplicate and have that same book in every library the way we do with physical books. But still, someone’s paying for that additional copy when those 26 times or whatever parameters the publisher puts around that title.
Quallich: So those are obviously some of the difficulties that libraries face. What is, would you say, is the biggest difficulty you as the state library face right now?
Soucie: I think in the e-book world, it is how do we meet the needs of patrons that still want physical books and the need of the patrons who want the e-books, and how do you balance that? At the State Library, we actually have changed the priority for our physical collection because it wasn’t circling as much. It wasn’t being utilized as much. We are prioritizing large print to meet the needs of our Talking Book patrons, those who are visually or physically impaired and can’t read traditional print. North Dakota-related materials, so if it’s written by or about North Dakota. Support for state agencies. And then those are our biggest priorities. And of course, we do all the state documents as well. And so we’ve been able to shift some of our dollars to the e-books. I think one of our big challenges remains, though, how do we serve the North Dakotans who live in an area without a public library? And how do we let them know that we serve them, they can get a state library card and get those materials? So that’s probably our biggest challenge is meeting the needs of the unserved.
Quallich: Now, as you say that, I hear the question, but I also hear the answer in my head, and that mainly being, well, e-books aren’t that expensive. But then again, here’s the answer, some people that want those e-books can’t pay a couple hundred bucks for a tablet.
Soucie: Exactly. Or, they might live in an area of North Dakota where internet access is still sketchy. I live in Bismarck, and sometimes my internet is sketchy. So, there’s, you know, and the digital divide is still a real thing. It’s a catchy term, but it’s still a real thing. We still have the haves and the have-nots. And the other thing I would say is I don’t know that I’m a particularly more voracious reader than, you know, everyone else. But we have an app at the State Library called Beanstack, and you can do reading challenges through it, and you can earn digital badges. That’s fun. I don’t care as much about the digital badges, but I can track my reading. So far this year, because I do a lot of audiobooks now, so far this year, I have finished 62 books. 62 books, and we’re halfway through the year. That’s a lot of dollars. And if you have someone who’s a voracious reader and likes trying out new authors, libraries meet that need. It’s one of the needs we’ve always met. And so we want to continue to meet those needs.
Quallich: So how many people are still coming to the physical library nowadays?
Soucie: Oh goodness, a lot. Fargo Library has a million visitors a year. No, wait, no, that’s not right. They have a million, they have two million checkouts. It is a lot, it is a lot. One in three North Dakotans have a public library card, which I think is great. What our libraries have said is that their traffic is pretty consistent, but what people are coming to the library for may have changed. Still for books, books always have been and always will be our bread and butter. Reading literacy, we do other literacies as well, but we do a lot of programs and people come to the library for programs. Grand Forks Public Library got a grant from us and they put a self-contained study area in the library where people can come in and do telehealth medicine. Right? They have a good connection through the library’s Wi-Fi. It’s soundproof. It’s private. That’s a need that 10 years ago libraries didn’t even anticipate having to meet. And now libraries are meeting those types of needs as well. So it’s not just coming in for books. There’s a lot of other reasons. In some of our libraries, we still have a high number of patrons coming in to use their public computers. In other public libraries, patrons are still coming in, not so much to use the public computer, but to have access to their faster Wi-Fi and to do things like print from their device. So they come in, the only computer they have is the one you held up, right? The only computer they have is their phone. You can’t print from a phone unless you have that type of a printer. So they come in to be able to print documents from their phone because that’s how they access emails, websites, all of that.
Quallich: Sure. Now you told us about some of the things that you do, but what if you had to give an elevator pitch, let’s say, to someone, how would you describe what the state librarian is responsible for or does?
Soucie: My main duty is to advocate for libraries at the local, state, regional, and then to help libraries meet the needs of their patrons at the local level.
Quallich: Now, as of course, you probably know, there has been some legislation and talk about, you know, picking and choosing books here and there for libraries. So are you the person that winds up giving the final say to what libraries can and can’t have? How does that work?
Soucie: No, no. We do not have any authority. We provide support to libraries. That is a local library decision. Each library board in the public library world, each library board is appointed by the city council or county commission, depending on if they’re city or county library, where they get their funding from. Some are combined. And then their local board is a governing board and makes those policies. In the school libraries, it’s the school districts that do it. And then of course at the university level, the universities do it. You know, the university board does it. We did provide guidance to the libraries on the bill that was passed last year, House Bill 1205. And then working with legislative management, we were actually able to collect the information from the libraries and report back to legislative management on the compliance report basically on behalf of the libraries so that 82 public libraries didn’t have to come to Bismarck or didn’t have to hop on the computer and give their report. It made it more seamless for the libraries as well as for legislative management.
Quallich: So of course you course, you know, as you say, you know, libraries are still a vital asset to communities, but at the same time, so are library scientists and librarians in general. So, how popular of a field is library science, and are you all still meeting? Is there a struggle to acquire new library librarians, rather?
Soucie: I think there are still a fair number of people who are going in to get their Master’s of Library. Now it’s called a Master’s of Library and Information Science or a Master’s of Information Science. And so I feel like the, when I got mine, it was a Master’s of Library Science and you got that degree with the intention of being a librarian. Now I think someone who goes through the program might be a librarian, maybe they’re going to be an archivist, maybe they’re going to be a data scientist and not work in the library field at all. In North Dakota, we have a lot of public libraries that don’t have anyone in them with a master’s in library science because they are small and rural. And that’s where the state library comes in. We provide support and we provide training. So I think there are still people coming into the field. I think the field’s broader than it used to be.
Quallich: Now I’ve interviewed you before for Someone You Should Know in the past and I think sometimes the stereotypical attitude for a librarian is they have to be very somber and very quiet and so on, but you have a lot of energy. So I guess, you know, what kind of personality does one have in order to pursue a librarian career if there is a cookie-cutter sort of librarian?
Soucie: I would say a lot of librarians are more introverted in nature than I am. But there do seem to be more and more extroverts coming into the field. And I think that’s because that image you have of the little only librarian shushing you with her glasses pulled down and her bun and her hair is slowly, not quick enough for me, it’s slowly diminishing. Libraries aren’t, they’re not quiet. There’s certainly quiet spaces within libraries, but libraries are very vibrant now, and they welcome that. They welcome the community. They welcome their interaction. I tell this, I just told this story to a friend recently. I’ve actually been shushed by a library patron before in my previous library. They were taking a test. We were proctoring a test for them, and the staff was at the desk talking, and the patron came up and said, could you all quiet down a little bit? I’m trying to take a test. And we’re like, oh, we’re so sorry, and we took it to the back room, right? So I don’t think there is a box that librarians fit into. But I definitely would say there are a lot more introverts than extroverts in the field.
Quallich: So outside of that attitude, why would someone pursue a career as a librarian?
Soucie: Oh, there’s so many reasons why. That’s a hard question to answer and a short answer. But I think at the end of the day, if you are passionate about helping people, that’s a reason to become a librarian. If you are passionate about good information and people having access to good resources, that’s a great reason to become a librarian. Libraries are truly the last or one of the last entities that serve everyone regardless of who they are, how much money they make, what they do for a living, where they live. You can come into a library, not live in that district or in that area, and still use the resources. You might not be able to take it out, you know, check it out and take it home, but you can still have access to the materials. So if you are someone who wants to share and increase and impact people’s lives, librarianship is a great career for you.
Quallich: So as we come kind of towards the end here, so as a state librarian, what would you like to ask of anybody who’s watching this interview who visits any one of North Dakota’s libraries?
Soucie: I would say visit the library first. You know, don’t make assumptions about what the library is. There is so much more you can find at your library today, and you might be surprised to find out what you will find. The Bismarck Public Library, and they’ve done this for a long time, circulates fishing poles. We have libraries that circulate cake pans. Jamestown circulates, they have an InstaPot that you can check out, a pressure cooker. Minot Public Library circulates tools. You need a ladder? Go to the library. So think of the library as your resource for all things, because if they don’t have it, they can help you figure out how to get it.
Quallich: And I suppose, you know, the big question is, like I said, the cake pan thing, that’s pretty cool, I would say, but what’s the next thing you see on the horizon coming, whether it’s North Dakota or any libraries, what’s the next big thing to sort of expect to see at a library?
Soucie The conversations that are happening a lot right now in libraries is AI, artificial intelligence. How do libraries help people use it wisely, not get taken advantage of? And then I think just different kinds of literacy. So here at the State Library, we recently worked with the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services and we developed a climate literacy kit. There’s libraries that check out the meters for your home so you can make sure that your electrical is where it should be or you know different things like that. So I think just continuing to expand the options that we have to meet both the information and personal enrichment needs of the communities that we serve.
Quallich: And what are you working currently on right now at the State Library?
Soucie: Probably for me one of the most exciting things. We have 160 STEM kits that we used to only loan to library schools and organizations. And we have now opened those up to anyone in North Dakota with a North Dakota State Library card. So you can check out a telescope. You can check out a microscope. You can check out robotics. You can actually even check out a drone from the North Dakota State Library. And the great thing about that drone is if you accidentally fly it into a tree, it’s going to collapse. It’s not going to implode. So we have all of these kits, and we’re just so excited that anyone in North Dakota can have access to the resources.
Quallich: Well, regardless of whether people check out a book or a drone, just be kind and make sure you return it on time, right?
Soucie: But if you don’t, you’re not going to pay a fine at the State Library and at a lot of our public libraries. That’s the other big thing is a lot of public libraries have eliminated their fines.
Quallich: All right. Just be courteous and be a good North Dakota citizen, right?
Soucie: Absolutely.
Quallich: Well, Mary, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure to talk with you today and learn more about The state libraries and our libraries here in North Dakota. So thank you again for your time and thank you as always for watching The Voice of the People podcast here on KX net.com. We’ll be back soon with more on the questions and answers affecting you, because remember it’s your voice that matters: The Voice of the People.