Investigating and summarising the literature on the 'functions' of the Library seems either too easy or impossible. First of all, there is very little literature of any substance, and secondly, I can't agree with some of it. What does that mean for me as a librarian, apparently dedicating myself to a profession located in an institution whose functions, as espoused by the literature, i would like to challenge?
Osburn finds some of the core 'functions' of the library found in the literature...
Library as:
an agent of communication
a force for cohesion
useful to the individual (flexibility and relevance)
serving society (storage and preservation of knowledge)
Benge (1970) pointed out the "unresolved and possibly inherent contradictions" within the foundations of librarianship. I can see the obvious tensions between the relevance and usefulness, and the storage and preservation, of knowledge. My concern is that the storage and preservation aspects are currently limiting the library's ability to remain flexible and relevant to the individual. Not in all actual library services, but in a deeper, more subconscious way (in the minds of librarians).
Also, the one thing I feel libraries dont do very well is communicate. It comes back in our surveys, and our conversations with clients: "I didn't know you did that" and "Why doesn't the library advertise this?" The biggest gap in our client satisfaction survey is almost always to do with communication with clients.
Giant fail.
Osburn identifies a set of themes as they relate to 'sense of place' of the library. These themes are: Ideas, Memory, Values, Imagination & creativity, and Intellectual comfort. That speaks to me as the library was always a 'safe space' for me, and these words feel 'safe'.
The confusion is that the library "is at once a producer, a medium, and a product of cultural evolution" (Osburn 2009). Perhaps we are forgetting that we are 'producers'.
After reading the book, I found it's conclusion to be an anticlimax. Over 300 pages long, rigourous, academic, and 'dense' reading, it eventually sums up library philosophy in two words: "people" and "ideas". I would add a word: "learning".
People, learning, and ideas.
I can be a librarian in that library.
