The library in the new age * Why our relevance lies in not being "information professionals" * Do libraries still matter? * Lifecycle Librarianship * Thinking out loud: A billion dollar IPO for Johns Hopkins * Knowledge for sale
The library in the new age, by Robert Darnton, in The New York Review of Books, 55(10), 12 June 2008: " Information is exploding so furiously around us and information technology is changing at such bewildering speed that we face a fundamental problem: How to orient ourselves in the new landscape? What, for example, will become of research libraries in the face of technological marvels such as Google? ...Information has never been stable. That may be a truism, but it bears pondering. It could serve as a corrective to the belief that the speedup in technological change has catapulted us into a new age, in which information has spun completely out of control. I would argue that the new information technology should force us to rethink the notion of information itself. It should not be understood as if it took the form of hard facts or nuggets of reality ready to be quarried out of newspapers, archives, and libraries, but rather as messages that are constantly being reshaped in the process of transmission. Instead of firmly fixed documents, we must deal with multiple, mutable texts. By studying them skeptically on our computer screens, we can learn how to read our daily newspaper more effectively—and even how to appreciate old books." Darnton is an historian and director of the Harvard University Library.
Why our relevance lies in not being "information professionals", by Rory Litwin, appeared in the April 22, 2005 issue of Library Juice. The author summarizes it as "an article about the implication of changes in the meaning of the word 'information' in the last century for what now calls itself the 'information profession.' The key to our relevance, I argue, is not in our ability to construct and navigate digital information systems, which everybody is doing, but in our ability to interpretively locate and provide context for the human cultural record in a way that draws people into the depth of texts and reconnects them to their history and place in the universe. "
Do Libraries Still Matter? Has the Internet made libraries obsolete? No, claims Daniel Akst, who traces the intermingled history of American libraries and Andrew Carnegie, and the impact of the digital revolution/evolution on the future of the modern library. Akst believes that libraries impart a sense of community that no amount of technological advancement can impair. From the Spring 2005 issue of The Carnegie Reporter.
Lifecycle Librarianship is a term coined by Dominican University professor Bill Crowley to describe a service philosophy in which "public, academic, and school librarians jointly plan at town, city, or county levels by identifying and meet human learning needs from lapsit to nursing home." In order to sustain librarians and libraries, Crowley says that we must discard the “information illusion” and develop the library services necessary to help solve critical social problems by addressing reading and learning, including electronic learning throughout citizens' entire life course. From the April 1st, 2009 issue of Library Journal.
Thinking Out Loud: A Billion Dollar IPO For John's Hopkins William R. Brody, President of John's Hopkins University ruminates on the value of librarians as the ultimate search engines, in The JHU Gazette (December 6, 2004 | Vol. 34 No. 14).
Knowledge for Sale: Are America's public libraries on the verge of losing their way? Chris Dodge finds reasons for both apprehension and hope regarding the future of libraries, and suggests ways you can be more involved in preserving the honor and integrity of these "national treasures." Utne Reader, July / August 2005
[ Prev | Home | Contents | Next ]