Reading Notes (1)

Information Format Trends: Content, Not Containers

This report pointed out several issues concerning formating and content creation and access, including disappearance of content dependency, changes in the media content is presented, increasing large quantities of content produced, but demanded in smaller and smaller parts and the consequences these issues will have for libraries and librarians.

One of the most interesting topics the report covered, I found, was how it depicted libraries in the future, as providers of content in competition with other information providers, but the provider with the added quality of authenticity. In another way, that libraries will provide information to patrons, at any time, at any place, with any content, and the "selling point" will be that the information provided by the library will be guaranteed as accurate/authentic. As most web-surfers know, authentication is sometimes hard to come by in a world wide web of self-publishers, blogs and wikis. I would be very interested in knowing how libraries would be able to provide such services in a cost-effective manner.


"Information Literacy and Information Technology Literacy: New Components in the Curriculum for a Digital Culture"

In this short paper, the author makes an argument for more informed 'educated laymen', through his descriptions of Information Technology Literacy and Information Literacy. The author's claim that both types of literacy are essential for successful functioning in today's society cannot be disputed. However, I'm not sure I entirely agree with his stance that Information Technology Literacy needs to be expanded for all students, for example, to programming. Perhaps I mis-interpret the author's meaning, but to enable an 'educated layperson' to effectively utilize information technologies in an everyday way, it is not necessary to teach him how to program a computer from the ground up. Yes, students should not come out of the education systems with little more than the ability to use today's software, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. New software, in my experience, is never so vastly different from something I have used previously that I find myself lost and unable to use it. I remain doubtful as to how not knowing something like electrical power distribution infratstructure will prevent someone from function intelligently in society.


Lied Library @ four years: technology never stand still

I found this article about the growing pains of an academic library quite informative. Only having some small experience as a volunteer in a small local library, I didn't realize the scope and extent of some of the problems that face different kinds of libraries. The issues of software and computer hardware are simliar in small libraries, but on a much smaller scale. The logistics of replacing two dozen computers is vastly different from those of replacing hundreds of computers. Security is another issue that I would have thought quite simple, but patrons walking off with computer equipment certainly causes different concerns. The article did make the case that, as a library adminstrator, one can never sit back and take a break. If you stop moving forward, in a technological sense, you're starting to move backward.