libraries

Entries Tagged as 'libraries'

No heads in the sand here

May 3rd, 2010 · 2 Comments · Change, libraries, Web 2.0

Whither are libraries going? Just this week a colleague suggested to me that librarians might be a dying profession. However, I don’t believe that, nor do I think that librarians have their heads in the sand about the evolving nature of their profession, clients, or facilities or materials. Not only are we hearing this message from [...]

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Cart and buggy or…?

November 9th, 2009 · 2 Comments · libraries, Web 2.0

There’s been a lot of talk lately around the blogosphere about the future of libraries from both within the library profession and outside of it. I think it’s been a great constructive dialogue about a complicated topic. You can follow some of the discussion here: The Uncertainty of Professional Persistence Touching Some Nerves Dangerously Irrelevant [...]

Defining a vision

October 20th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Leadership, libraries

In their article in School Library Journal, Things That Keep us Up at Night, Joyce Valenza and Doug Johnson have given us much food for thought. They are earnestly concerned about the survival of school librarians and libraries if we don’t evolve to meet the current demands that technological and societal changes regarding information use have [...]

Future of libraries…some thoughts

June 24th, 2009 · 2 Comments · libraries

After our discussion at the Future of Libraries panel(see previous post) last week, and some general discussions around the blogosphere, it is clear there is profession-wide self-examination going on about libraries and our services and our customers. In his post, “Who are Your Competitors” David Lee King ponders this subject, asking “What are you doing [...]

Which way do we go?

April 13th, 2009 · 1 Comment · Change, libraries

This morning I saw a new website twittered– BooksFree.com –which allows you to “rent” books like you do Netflix videos. Demise of library services as we know them? Will people still want to go to a place if they can get the item via their mailbox? (of course, it’s not free, you have a monthly [...]

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Tags:"future libraries"·Change

The power of place

March 24th, 2009 · 4 Comments · libraries, Web 2.0

A tweet from Chris Craft just caught my eye this morning and triggered all sorts of thoughts. crafty184 “I really would like to figure out something I’d need to ask a reference librarian because Google can’t provide the answer.” I jokingly responded a question Google probably can’t answer: “Where is the pencil sharpener?” But there’s [...]

A new model?

July 16th, 2008 · 2 Comments · libraries

As our library facility moves closer to completion(December?), I’ve been pondering how to use the new space we’ve created more effectively, and create a student-friendly facility. At NECC, I was fortunate enough to meet David Loertscher(guru in library field!), who shared with me his new book, The New Learning Commons: Where Learners Win, cowritten with [...]

Changing vision of libraries

July 13th, 2008 · 1 Comment · libraries

Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody reminds us that forces outside of education are driving changes throughout society. How that trickles down to school libraries is the question? And how do we advocate for the “21st century” library? Julia Keller had an interesting column in the May issue of American Libraries, “Killed By Kindness,” pointing [...]

Reaching out

May 21st, 2008 · 5 Comments · libraries

An interesting Twitter conversation the other day has had outreach on my mind. The other morning, several of us — Kristin Hokanson, Jenny Luca, and Robin Ellis and others were debating how to reach out to librarians (or teachers) who were reluctant adopters of technology. We concluded that there are several factors at work and [...]

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Libraries, schools and third places?

May 11th, 2008 · 5 Comments · Design, libraries

As the culture outside our schools change, are our buildings changing to reflect the “outside” world? Mitchell Joel’s interesting Six Pixels of Separation blog comments on a fascinating article in the Economist, “The New Oases,” about how people now are much more nomadic in their use of spaces. (I found Joel’s blog via Garr Reynold’s excellent Presentation Zen blog). Wi-fi, mobility, and [...]

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Tags:school design