The best future is that which you make for yourself. The worst is a future to which you are subjected without choice. Books about the future are notoriously difficult to write and publish. These books are either genuinely about the future or about existing and known trends. This book is in the latter category.
It is important to make this clear from the outset. This book does not talk about the ‘future’, but it talks about ‘all of the future trends’ which the author thinks we, as Librarians, should pursue. They and the examples are all US-centric. This is not to say that they cannot be global, but they lack the adhesiveness to the differing environments operating across the globe in public libraries. By this I mean that the author talks about all the futures which she considers that libraries have to prepare for and act upon. She provides a very daunting task without methodologies or guides by which the reader can navigate a course for their career or their library. The title of the book: Resilience, is her driver, as ‘the capacity that enables people, places and systems to survive, adapt and thrive’ (p.1).
The difficulty with this style of book is that if these trends which the author describes are to be followed, they are, by definition, the past and not the future. This book has much to offer but unfortunately its potential is not fully realised. It is largely a series of anecdotes of what libraries have done. All laudable and interesting but the only link between them is ‘resilience’. Librarians and libraries are more, much more, than only about resilience. They have thoughtfully positioned themselves where they will intersect with the future, if not creating that future. It is a thought through future anticipating and planning for that which may not already be existent.
Embedded in everything in the book is a design to create sustainable libraries. This is evidenced in various examples, making this aspect both laudable and achievable. Most of our libraries and librarians will not lead but will follow that which they consider the best lead for their circumstances.
Working with the future is, according to this author, is to act on this, and then to position for that and finally to be not just an ‘educator but an activist’ (p.87). The book is not a roadmap to the future but a smorgasbord of everything which is on the menu without any guide or methodology to enable the mighty or the humble to see their place potential actions in this universe.
This is a concise book, being 87 pages in length, and the author is an ALA sustainability journal columnist. It is marketed to an American audience, at a time when they could do well to look wider. That said, this book does provide a pot pourri of ideas and examples of what has happened and could be. As such it is a worthwhile purchase. It could, however, be much more.