Week 13, culture and pop culture trends reflection

[Saurav Khadka]

Finally we came to the end point of semester, time flies by, anyways, today I am going to talk about trend reflection on culture and pop culture as week 13’s topic. Again as we know library is an information center, it is the place where people should get all necessary information from. If we trace back in history of library, according to Nick Moore, “The public library service can be said to have begun properly in 1850 with the passage of the Public Libraries Act “. Since then library has been existing and providing information. However, library that time only provided books and reading materials, but “The emergence of the modern British public library can be traced to 1965, the year when the Public Libraries and museums Act 1964 came into force.” And since then, they began to provide various modern technology and information via library.

And with this improvement in library services, gradually there is a new concept in library to include culture and pop culture in libraries. Different program, product and services library provide includes cultural knowledge. Again, there comes differentiation between high culture and pop culture, as said by Stacey Larner, “I’m not even a Whovian. I think for me, pop culture is a sign of a time period. Like growth rings on trees.” This was a nice example of differentiating culture with pop culture. Also the word ‘pop’ itself suggests, it’s like popping something new out in environment where something already exists.

Likewise, library should include some programs that will accommodate every kind of people with different cultures. As nowadays, people travel from different country from one to another, and having privilege for every type of people from various culture should be library’s goal. Even library being a makerspace, they should have programs that will give information about different cultures existing in current environment, so that everyone can be familiar with it. According to Deborah A. “The audience for cultural programming is primarily adults as well as young adults and families, because many resources specifically for children’s programming already exist.”  Emphasizing adults rather than only focusing on children is also a good way of bringing improvement in trend of culture and pop culture in library.

Similarly, according to Deborah A. “Fund-raising is an industry unto itself.” Different bodies have invested in cultural programming nowadays. Unlike in past, when library was only place for books, which now is a makerspace, there is a clear change in trend from now and then. Moreover, libraries are introducing new technologies like 3-D printer, which can also be considered as new trend in library which will gradually bring a different cultural change in concept of library.

[Kate McKelliget]

Saurav, greetings! I really like the point you made about libraries reflecting the popular culture of the various cultures of the library users. Here, there are collections and story times etc in other languages that are pertinent to the languages of those libraries’ users. Often, popular events, such as the Chinese New Year will also be celebrated in the libraries. However, I can’t help to think of the Event Cinemas in my area that screens Bollywood, Chinese and Korean films because many people in my area are from these cultures and countries. If the cinemas have identified a need to provide this source of pop culture to these members of our community, I imagine that the library could also support this need too.

[Author]

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