Libraries Should Be What Users Want—With a Little Help from Librarians

By Francine Fialkoff on May 29, 2012 

The future is vibrant—and it is working—in Colorado, where LJ held its 12th Design Institute (DI), visited area libraries that reflect and respond to their communities, and heard from both librarians and architects about new library spaces for collaboration and creation. It’s engaged in upstate New York, at Fayetteville Free Library (FFL). There, Director Sue Considine and transliteracy development director Lauren Britton have launched a Fab Lab for creation of physical products—and those can be as high-tech as what comes out of a 3-D MakerBot or as low-tech as the product and designs of a crochet group, which can be made into a book to inspire others. (For more on maker spaces, listen to the OCLC/LJ webinar, Made in a Library.)As many of us here at LJ gear up to attend the American Library Association conference in Anaheim, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on the future of libraries. To quote political muckraker Lincoln Steffens, “I have seen the future, and it works.” Unfortunately, Steffens was referring to the post–World War I Soviet Union, and we all know how that turned out. I feel a bit more confident, however, about the future I see.

It’s all-encompassing at Skokie Public Library in Illinois, which has a digital media lab for adults, not just teens or college students. It’s confirmed in LJ’s Patron Profiles (going online soon, in print p. 50–51), which reports that power e-users “aren’t choosing the web over coming to the library in person…they are choosing to do both.”

The message is the same all over: libraries are not just warehouses for books but places of creation and community. They’re not just information sources but maker spaces and social spaces. They’re places that “make us want to linger,” as MS&R architect Traci Lesneski put it at the DI at Denver Public Library last month. When Dan Meehan, HBM Architects, asked the roomful of librarians how many thought their libraries would have 25, 50, or 75 percent fewer print books in ten years, most hands shot up at 50 percent.

Librarians have already started planning for that change. Like Considine, they’ve begun repurposing their collection development dollars. “Lauren [Britton] came knocking at my door—she was a circulation clerk—with her idea [for a maker space] at a time we were looking at our budget,” says Considine, “examining what we do, what we should not do…. We want to help the community create content, not merely consume it…to provide access [to tools to achieve] their hopes, dreams, aspirations…. Librarians do that every day already.”

The particulars may vary, but the thinking is the same. Find out what your users want and “what they don’t even know they need,” said Louise Schaper at the DI, channeling Steve Jobs. (Schaper is project lead on LJ’s New Landmark Libraries; the latest round of winners, academic buildings, will be revealed in July.)

Despite all the talk of downsizing collections, libraries aren’t abandoning the book brand, or the collection. Joseph Sanchez (instructional designer at Auraria Library at the University of Colorado, Denver; a panelist at both the DI and the OCLC/LJ webinar; and a 2011 LJ Mover & Shaker) has helped lead development of the ebook purchase (not license) model at Douglas County Libraries, CO (see “Momentum Builds for DCL’s Ebook Model,”). His vision goes much further, with a collection development policy that would add the audio, video, ­ebooks, and “physibles” (digital objects that can become physical) that the library user creates to the library’s holdings. It dovetails with Britton’s idea at FFL. “In a read/write culture,” she says, “[library users] write their own book and make two copies: one to take home, one to be cataloged.”

In Sanchez’s plan, library users/creators donate one copy to the library of origin to be cataloged and circulated. They can sell the digital file or product to other libraries at fair market value. “Here’s thousands of libraries willing to distribute your creation if you agree to sell, not license it,” says Sanchez.

With minds like these in the library field, it’s no wonder the future looks like it really does work.

Source: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/05/opinion/editorial/owning-up-to-the-future-libraries-should-be-what-users-want-with-a-little-help-from-librarians/

A library in the schoolbag

The quest for the optimal mobile device that can advance education by improving access to learning materials and reducing costs is engaging many countries, including India. Among the more promising gadgets for the task are e-readers, which use e-ink display technology that closely matches the look and feel of a printed black and white page. Tablet computers, on the other hand, offer a full-colour, backlit screen alternative suitable for multimedia and rich content. These technologies can significantly aid the teaching-learning process. And this concept has been put to the test in a field setting in Ghana involving distribution of e-readers to hundreds of school students. One striking outcome: 43 per cent of the students, who had never used a computer, learned to use the gadget quickly. Students who had access to only a few books at home were able to read an average of 107 titles overnight. These ranged from wirelessly delivered sponsored texts to open access volumes that they downloaded. Also, several students discovered that they could listen to music, and read newspapers using the data connection. Importantly, though, 40 per cent of the gadgets broke while in use mainly because of fragile screens. These results from the project make it clear that there are key problems to be ironed out.

India's grand plan to identify a tablet device for educational purposes has been virtually stillborn. The Centre has conceded that the Aakash tablet computer distributed in limited numbers does not measure up due to problems such as heating of the device, limited battery life and unsuitable screen technology. The Department of Information Technology, which has been working with the IIT system, must show the competence necessary to come up with a robust set of specifications for the ideal “low cost access-cum-computing” device for students. The key factor that should underscore the programme is a falling price curve for the hardware. Amazon's Kindle, an e-reader, has witnessed a price fall from $399 in 2007, to $79 now. If a similar graph can be ensured in India, there can be a free or subsidised reading-learning device in every schoolbag. Moreover, the gadget must be able to exploit the ubiquitous availability of mobile data connectivity. Crucially, learning materials need to be available free of copyright costs. Literature could be sourced, for instance, using Creative Commons permission for use by students. It would be a great leap forward if a robust, affordable device can be produced through multiple vendors on an open licensing platform, with the Centre specifying the benchmarks, and monitoring compliance through a certification mechanism.

SOURCE: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article3453042.ece

The new Information professionals are here

Librarianship is a scholarly profession with promise 

HI-TECH LIBRARY: An automatic book issue machine
In the present global economy, the future of a country is tied up with knowledge-leveraged growth. The prime movers to achieve such growth are (i) education, (ii) research, and (iii) communication. A formidable infrastructure in education, reinforced with well-knit communication and dissemination work-out, is sine qua non for knowledge-based growth. Life and living all around today is virtually under the grip of information and communication. The unlimited information flow has to be managed and systematically transformed into a useful input. As such, automation of library is the need of the hour worldwide for online access to books, journals and allied material.
The work culture in libraries is changing fast. Cyber libraries are happening; packed with digital documents, CDs and books. Newspapers, journals, textbooks and reference books, all will be on CD-ROMs and digital multimedia. Publishers like Penguin have started issuing classics on CD. Great books of India and are made available on internet. Libraries will soon possess even robots (with artificial intelligence) and other such machines which will perform various services for the readers. Paper-library and paperless-library will co-exist. Low-cost, light-weight electronic book-readers, with built-in modem, will be used more conveniently, instead of PC.
Several libraries are being connected for resource sharing. Information like research findings; data; databases; online yellow pages; electronic mail services; investment guides; travel guidelines with related maps; educational and career guidance and the like can easily be retrieved. As publishing is now moving on to digital-media formats, library likewise needs to advance its devices and networking to make use of the digital materials. The collection is stored and maintained in computer-accessible form and accessed digitally through computer networking, regardless of the location of libraries. The process makes well-ordered, instant information-retrieval possible, globally. People are getting net-savvy and so is the demand for online digital information service increasing manifold swiftly.
For Indian libraries, digital movement is lagging far behind, primarily due to financial limitation and compulsion. The old systems of acquisition, storage, organisation and dissemination are giving way and becoming obsolete. The present library is is more ‘service-adept' and less ‘resource-oriented.' Likewise, the staff has to be technically accomplished. Today, a Librarian (no, Information Professional) functions as “navigator” and filler of information to intellectual reserves, with the help of search engines, e-resources, digitalisation and tools like Gopher, FTP, Telnet, Unix, MS-Office, Windows, Linux etc.
Jobs Jobs in library consists of also budgeting, accounting, acquisition of collection, organisation and management of the institution, besides rendering service to readers. In the areas of self-education, distant learning and online schooling, the library is indispensable. The training courses in the profession have been designed to meet emerging requirements and challenges. Currently, following levels of education and courses in LISc are held by the universities:
Bachelor of Library and B.LI.Sc Information Science (admission requirement: degree in any discipline)
Master of Library and M.LI.Sc Information Science (truncated course-one year M.LI.Sc.) (admission requirement: B.L.I.Sc.)
Master of Library and M.L.I.Sc. Information Science (Integrated Course) (admission requirement: degree in any discipline).
Master of Library and M.L.I.Sc Information Science (Bachelor degree in any discipline with Library and Information Science as one of the optional subjects).
Certificate course in Library Science of three to six month duration is conducted at some places by Library Associations, for higher secondary students to work as librarian in a small library. Knowledge of foreign languages is an advantage in this profession.
A knowledgeable librarian works as a guide, making the reader aware of the relevant literature, like any other teacher. In academic libraries, library professional's grades and status have therefore, been prescribed by the UGC at par with those of teachers of the universities and colleges. University Librarian, D.y Librarian and Assistant Librarian are placed in the pay-scales of University Professor, Associate Professor and Assistant Professor respectively, provided they possess qualification at par with those of the teachers, as prescribed by the UGC. In the institutions of science and technology and scientific research also, library professionals are treated at par with those of the corresponding scientists. Job satisfaction of librarians of these institutions of learning and research are quite satisfactory. In public libraries, however, librarians' grades are not uniform and satisfactory. Grades differ from State to state and much needs to be done to ameliorate the conditions of the staff of these libraries.
With increased emphasis on spread of literacy and education, and a good number of new Universities, IITs, engineering colleges, business and management schools and industrial establishments coming up, the job-market for library professionals looks good in the public and private sectors.
Regarded as a noble, soft profession, it is much suited to women, assisting the information-seekers, especially children. Women make good children librariana. Here, she is not only distributor of books but also an affectionate friend to children, a mentor and guide.