CIL 2006 and Library Thinking
I’ve been digesting all the information presented at the conference and am excited about the changes that technology is bringing to the library. Smartphones, PDAs, and increasingly smaller computers combined with wireless, bluetooth, and cellular networks make information access available on a 24 hour basis. The library is becoming less and less a particular place, but more of an ongoing electronic prescence. It isn’t that libraries don’t benefit from a home base with traditional materials, I think they do. However, the rate of information access through computers and other smart devices is rapidly increasing and the library concept must change from one of place to one of prescence.
Librarians will adapt to this change in concept by increasing opportunity for access through any device with the capability to access the information we have available. Web pages for libraries will have to be scalable to any device and any size screen. The databases we provide will have to be accessible and scalable also. We will find ourselves increasing the number of ebooks, audiobooks, music, podcasts, and movies/video that we have available and make them easily uploadable to any device in any desired format. Our catalogs will dynamically link to any of our holdings and offer them for immediate access.
This is Web 2.0 and Library 2.0, but the basis of the library is still service, even if that service is mediated through electronic devices. Ranganathan’s teaching holds true–every patron his information product and an information product for every patron.