Test cricket, Centrelink, Charles Darwin and the evolution of public libraries
There is no good reason why I should be sitting at my desk at 3.42am connecting the dots between a 2019 Public Libraries Victoria (PLV) planning retreat, Cockburn Libraries in Western Australia (WA), Centrelink, LinkedIn, Charles Darwin and Artificial Intelligence (AI). But when you wake up and check the stumps score of a Test match between England and India that is happening on the other side of the world, and are suddenly contemplating the theory of library evolution, you need to write things down before your head explodes. So let me do this as simply as I can.
Last night I was flicking through LinkedIn and came across an item from Cockburn Libraries in WA. We worked with them to develop a Strategic Library Plan in March 2020 immediately prior to the world shutting down due to the COVID pandemic. The post referenced an ABC article about a social worker program being trialled at the City of Cockburn’s Success Library (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-08/perth-library-trials-social-worker-program/105359132). (And “Yes” – the suburb is named Success, after the HMS Success, one of the first vessels to reach the fledgling Swan River colony in 1827). The trial occurred after librarians noticed an increase in people using libraries as a safe space, notably a teenage girl spending long hours in the library each day. “She wasn’t at school and she didn’t want to be at home because she was suffering from domestic and family violence. She didn't want to leave when the library was closing." With support from Cockburn Integrated Health and Communicare, two students from Curtin University have set up a desk tucked just inside the entrance to the library and staffed it a couple of days a week. "It’s a drop in style service. Anybody who uses the library can come in and just have a chat with us. They might be looking for resources, they might need a support service (or) be looking for a referral.” The library hopes that the trial will provide data to help secure ongoing funding to have social workers stationed there permanently. As the article noted, similar programs already exist in Fremantle (WA), the City of Melbourne and South Australia.
That such a thing should eventuate in Success is not a surprise. When speaking to other libraries about what’s happening in the public library sector we often quote the example of being at Success in 2020 and watching the regular stream of people walking out of the Centrelink offices and taking the 10 steps across the corridor to the library entrance. Inside they found a safe welcome, a smile, access to PCs and printers and assistance in completing their Centrelink forms, because that’s what modern librarians do. (For my international followers, Centrelink is the Australian Government agency which provides social security payments for retirees, the unemployed, families, people with disabilities, carers, students and others needing financial assistance.)
Next, jump to a conversation that occurred a few weeks ago as part of a library review we were undertaking for a large urban library. In the course of conversation we noted the emergence of these models in Fremantle and Melbourne, and were immediately shut down with the response that “Librarians are not social workers.” No argument from me, librarians already have plenty to do in serving their communities, and this library service is facing some serious challenges with difficult customers. But I’d also say that doesn’t mean that a library can’t find a way to be a positive agent for social change.
So these thoughts are running through my head at 3:13am and I remember a PLV planning retreat I facilitated some years back. The keynote speaker was R. David Lankes, an academic, author and profound thinker from the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina. (David’s The New Librarianship Field Guide may have been written in 2016 but is still well worth the read.) In that keynote David tracked the evolution of public libraries from the era of the Book Palace (early 1900s to the 1980s) to the Information Centre (highly networked, connected and increasingly digital) and today’s Community Hub (with a library café and co-working spaces). From there David anticipated the emergence of the Library as Movement. That is, a place where communities, libraries, schools, parents, businesses and others come together to create change, to create a movement. This concept is highly localised and outcome-focused, where the library is a place where communities draw on a wide range of resources and skills to realise important social change – whether that be related to literacy, social inclusion, democracy, the environment.
“So there you go, my quick trip through the evolution of libraries. A trip that will never be complete, because we are a living and thriving profession. Our communities need us now more than ever. … Our communities need trusted professionals to ensure not only their rights, but to amplify their voice in the debates on the future.”
Lying on the couch at 3:27am I Google Darwin’s theory of evolution, and get a succinct AI overview.
“Darwin’s theory of evolution proposes that all species of living things have evolved over time from common ancestors through a process of natural selection. This means that species change gradually over generations, with advantageous traits becoming more common and less advantageous traits becoming less common. Here’s a breakdown of the key concepts:
Variation: Individuals within a species exhibit variations in their traits.
Inheritance: These variations can be passed on to offspring.
Struggle for Existence: Organisms produce more offspring than can survive, leading to competition for resources.
Natural Selection: Individuals with traits better suited to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on their advantageous traits.
Descent with Modification: Over long periods these gradual changes can lead to the formation of new species.”
At which point I conclude the following (an “end” point that will undoubtedly change as I learn and discover new things).
The story of Success Library and its engagement with social workers was almost inevitable, it was simply adapting to its environment. And this might not be the story for every public library because their local environments are not exactly the same. But our world is sufficiently homogenous and challenging that these are ideas and potential pathways that cannot be dismissed out of hand, because that way risks Darwinian de-selection.
The future evolution of libraries, the next iteration beyond the Book Palace and the Community Hub, can be wholly shaped by our environment and external forces. Or it can be shaped with recognition of that environment by people brave enough to participate in the conversation. As I look out on a troubled world, in my own neighbourhood and afar, the time for that conversation is now.