Information? At least it's not Twilight

In her article ‘What is information and is it still what we do in public libraries?’ blogger Michelle McLean explores the very definition of information, and whether fictional resources (novels, DVDs, etc.) are considered to be information. She does this by questioning whether or not the oft repeated phrase that libraries are all about information, and then recounting the point of view of a friend of hers, as well as that of Hamish Curry. McLean considers the services that the library that she works at offers, and ultimately concludes that, while she still isn’t sure whether or not fiction is actually information, a lot of the services offered by libraries still is, and that is what she will be thinking about the next time someone says that libraries are all about information.

And this fascinates me. For starters, the very idea of fiction being information isn’t something that I’ve questioned much. To me, fiction can be extremely informative, for example ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ by Lemony Snicket. I am a massive fan of these books, in part because of the cynicism that I can derive from the books, and in part because they’re capable of being extremely informative, giving definitions for dozens of words in each book. If a work of fiction is written well, it can be informative and entertaining, as is the case with ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’. The exact opposite of this would be something like ‘Twilight’, which teaches the reader absolutely nothing and it’s my personal belief that to enjoy the books at all, the reader must actually shut off their brain whilst reading. Anyway, before I start a massive rant about the abuse of vampires at the hands of Stephanie Meyer, my point is that the “protagonist” learnt no lessons. In fact, over the course of four books, the only things that she ever learnt about are vampires and werewolves. In comparison, the Baudelaire orphans, the protagonists of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’, suffered repeatedly at the hands of Count Olaf and had to learn about who they were, what they could do and how to defend themselves against Count Olaf, amongst other things. Of course, another thing in their favour is that they, unlike Bella Swan, are actually likable characters that suffer real, endless tragedy. But even discounting works of fiction, of course libraries are all about information. From magazines, to newspapers, to the computers and wi-fi access, to the library staff themselves and so many more services that libraries offer, no-one that I have ever met has doubted that libraries are massive centres of information. Even if they are stupid enough to wonder what the big deal is about books, if they want information and can’t find the information themselves online (because let’s face it, with most people having access to the internet, people are more likely to google the information than go to the library), they know that they can go to the library and get some help to find whatever it is that they want.