Saturday, October 20, 2007
Week 6 Post 15: Library 2.0
Rick Anderson had an interesting theory in that libraries won't need a "collection" of print materials to meet our user's every need. Sure, there are expensive reference materials that are never used so they are eliminated. What happens to collection development, acquisitions, the reference librarian, and book publishing in general? We will all become redundant! Make way for the IT professionals - web-based info sources are the way of the future. I guess we'll still have a job teaching folks how to access databases and download audios. And don't forget those after-school kids who have no place else to go! The library 2.0 is a community center now and print materials are probably the least in demand.
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Amen to your comments! We still have demand for print sources for homework--plus afterschool activities seem to involve moving many books from one place to another! So we may not mean to, but we provide small children with many books to stack and order. We should get credit from educators for having so many available "manipulatives"!
I totally concur with you that Library 2.0 might best be viewed as a community center, not only focused on lifelong learning, but the social and creative aspects that learning implies. However, I don't think we're going to have to worry about the death of collection development, acquisitions, or book publishing just yet. I believe developing a bibliography or pathfinder of useful and authoritative websites to link to is as much an act of collection development as what we traditionally consider of the term. Amazon.com seems to be making a pretty healthy profit, so I'm not certain books are in a list of imminently exstinct objects just yet. Yes, yesterday when we were having problems getting any customer connected to the internet, we had a handful leave "I just wanted to check my e-mail." So maybe we're in a transitional period; perhaps our Library web presence is becoming as important as our physical facilities; but we've gone through pretty radical change before (open stacks, libraries open to anyone in the public, the change in librarianship to a female-dominated profession, automation, integration of public access computers) and we can conquer this future too!
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