Notes: LIS 2600 Unit 1 Introduction
OCLC: 2004 Information Trends: Content, Not Containers
Pg. 2:
Format Agnostic: Consumers do not care what the container is, they care about the content.
- Would reading a magazine online with all the same content be desirable?
- How does the role of the library change if consumers are not content dependent?
· Organization? Acquisition? Delivery?
*In Michigan my local public library had the Amazon Kindle available for checkout. Maybe a libraries role will shift, and not necessarily have to provide the content, but the containers and access points for that content.
Pg. 3
*Social aspects influencing trends. People want to stay connected, phones, internet, wireless.
- How can libraries provide access to devices such as phones?
Marshall McLuhan: “The medium is the message.”
- People and the industry are trying to stay ahead of the trend by being able to predict the latest medium, or container to access content.
Text is the universal medium. Still.
Pg. 4
Consumers want “low-cost, convenient channel,” to access content.
- Will libraries be able to afford to provide an access point to content for free, as they currently do with books and other printed materials?
Graph: Inter-Library Loan may very well be the only way to gain access to certain printed materials in the near future. Especially depending on the size of the library and its mission: provide content or container.
Pg.5
Will libraries become a source of social information?
- A public library could eventually provide users with greater access to each other and not just content.
- Does this mean more computers, more facebook?
Pg. 6
If people are willing to spend 3.2 billion dollars on “microcontent,” will they be willing to subscribe to books, or magazines, or newspapers, that could be accessed from a remote device?
Amazon Kindle
iPod Touch
Pg.7
Libraries could help individuals sift our what is appropriate intellectual thoughts from all the blogs and wikis.
- If blog readers are wealthier than we suspect, they may be more likely to pay to have instant and unfettered access to content.
- Should Librarians be responsible for sifting through blogs and deciding what is relevant and should be preserved?
Pg. 10
A device that combines the Kindle and a computer would be handy. Maybe a software application that one could download onto their computer in order to read books, magazines, journals, and newspapers like the kindle. The software could then be available at libraries.
Pg. 11
University presses have had to close because they cannot compete with electronic resources and cannot bring down costs enough.
Pg.12
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
- Even if libraries coordinate their materials, there are still going to have to be places where people can access this information.
Pg. 13
Librarians are still going to have to decide what information is authentic and worth saving.
Information is only useful when it can be located and synthesized into knowledge.
Clifford Lynch: “Information Literacy and Information Technology Literacy: New Components in the Curriculum for a Digital Culture”
Information Technology literacy: understanding the tools of technology, the policies that influence the development of and the use of technology.
Information Literacy: content and communication of information. Research, analysis, assessment and evaluation
- can be text, images, video, computer, interactive
*Information technology and literacy are intertwined. They influence each other – IT shapes publication, and therefore influences how people research for information and assess it.
Perhaps libraries’ roles will change from content repositories, to be places of information technology learning centers, as well as information literacy centers.
Lynch argues that an individual should be well rounded in all aspects of technology. This may be too much to ask too soon of everybody. Librarians with a basic knowledge of each area could at least potentially help an individual in their pursuit of technology.
Recognizing that in the digital age information can easily be altered (especially images and video) is important in understanding and assessing information.
- The average patron should be able to trust a librarian to help them sift through information in the digital age, individuals should not have to know exactly how all information and retrieving devices function.
Jason Vaughan: Lied Library @ four years: technology never stands still
The Lied Library seems to be in a very unique situation. Their ability to keep updated on all software and provide the hardware that must accompany updated software year after year is surely not the norm.
Vaughan stresses the importance of computers being accessible to UNLV students. He spends almost too much time on this issue – suggesting that students are only there to have computer access when surely this is not the case.
I understand that the purpose of Vaughan’s essay was to give a comprehensive insight into how the Lied Library has progressed since its opening, but he focuses too much on the use of computers by patrons. Subsequently, the essay is labored with lists and pats on the back.
I would be more impressed with such a technologically advanced library if it noted how patrons still gained access to materials and information.
