Fewer people are reading books, here's how librarians are adapting

Mr Brady is the Orange City Library librarian and is recognisable by his colourful bowties and ties but said he's had an unusual career projection working from the bottom up.

Since taking up the librarian position, he has implemented a variety of programs for children through to the elderly, bringing the library into a new age.

There's no doubt he's passionate about what he does but Mr Brady didn't have a career as a librarian on his agenda while growing up in the beach-side suburb of Maroubra and attending Maroubra Bay High School.

"I needed a job in the first place, as time went on it became a career, it was never really a passion of mine," he said.

"I have been passionate about it at various times and I'm passionate about it now but when I first started out I just needed a job and I was fortunate to fall into a library assistant job at the state library and I could see that it was possible to build a career out of this.

"There was a very clear study progression into library technician that ultimately led to going to university which when I first started out was way beyond me, my HSC was abysmal so there was no immediate pathway for me to university but you just take small learning stepping stones and ultimately get there in the end."

Mr Brady is a keen reader but said his preferences are generally limited to science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction and "the smallest smattering of murder mysteries".

He said there are other staff at the library who read more widely and are excellent at providing recommendations off the top of their head and he has other tools and resources he uses to find recommendations in genres he's not familiar with.

He said his career progression has been unusual.

"I started as a nothing at the state library and studied to become a library technician and I was that and then I moved to Orange with the Department of Agriculture and worked as a library technician there," he said.

"Then I started my degree in the mid-90s and became a librarian at the end of that century so I've done all levels of library work."

To become a librarian Mr Brady completed a Bachelor of Information Science at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, followed by a Masters of Library and Information Management, all while also working in libraries.

Mr Brady considered doing a PhD but by then he had children and realised he couldn't do it all.

Mr Brady is now approaching his 10-year anniversary at the library, which is the largest of seven branches in the Central West Libraries group.

He said moving to Orange allowed him to buy a house and the lifestyle suited raising a family with good quality of life, proximity to work, cultural amenities and lots of attractions.

However, his two now grown-up sons have moved away from Orange, "because Orange is now too small".

Throughout his career he's seen big changes from the focus on books to the library becoming a community service hub.

The books and resources are still there to borrow and read but the library staff also help people navigate online services such as Centrelink or Services NSW, helping with resumes and immigration forms, or helping elderly members learn to use their own devices.

"People are now confronted with this constant change and that's partly what we're dealing with is constantly trying to keep up with technology and help people through it," he said.

"One of the changes for the library is changing its focus from being books to being a community service and in many ways that's what many libraries are now, they are community hubs for people to get help with a range of services.

"There was an information vacuum there so we had to fill it but we had to change our skills and change our approach to people and their changing needs."

He said the rise of online has come with a decreasing readership.

"That's the reality, less people are reading books, we can tell that by the number of bookshops in Orange now, there used to be three or four, there's now one," Mr Brady said.

"That impacts on our client base, on our membership base and the number of visits we get and the number of loans we get.

"Books are still our primary business and yes there are still a lot of people who come in, to the tune of 400 to 500 people a day who come to primarily to borrow a book, but that has diminished over the 20 or 30 years since I've been working in libraries."

Mr Brady said the library also still runs book clubs including Page Turners, which has two sessions once a month, a day session and an evening session. There's also a junior book club called Inklings.

"Reading is still prime for us, it's still a chief reason for our being, there's a lot of reading, literacy and literature," he said.

"We still run Storytime and that's been a traditional program and activity for us, we've increased our Storytimes to capacity now, we just cannot do any more, we just do not have enough staff or time in the day or days in the week."

Mr Brady has also included new workshops for children including a popular Lego club and code clubs.

"There's no curriculum just come in and have some fun and learn some coding at the same time," he said.

He said his favourites were tech toys and code club.