Posted on April 11th, 2007 by Brenda
A panel of library leaders was asked to address two questions:
1. What are the key trends that are influencing library and information services?
2. How will these trends influence SLIM’s programs?
A. Sharon Coatney, Acquistions Editor for Libraries Unlimited (SCHOOL)
- Library as place – are our libraries the libraries we want or the libraries that our users want?
- School libraries cannot be the public library in the school – they have to be something different.
- Technology is pervasive. There’s so much to learn and it’s constant. There is not a lot of in-service for technology that school librarians can attend (often just for teachers).
- Universal pre-school – many districts are mandating. That has tremendous impact on library service in that building.
B. Lori Goetsch, Dean of Kansas State Libraries (ACADEMIC)
- Her responses are drawing heavily from ACRL’s Top Ten Assumptions for the Future
- Technology skills are vital
- Technology as the great leveler (so many things are available for free on the web – available not only to the big libraries, but also to the small)
- Academic library as leisure environment. 30+% of K State students, when asked where they spend their free time, said Hale Library.
- Instructional design is becoming increasingly important.
- Strategic planning and budgeting
C. Christie Brandau, State Librarian of Kansas
- Exciting time to be a librarian! So many opportunities for innovation and outreach.
- Skype as a reference tool?
- Personal, to-your-desk, user-centric service — we have new technology tools that can help us provide that user-centric service. We have competition that is good, convenient and accessible.
- Technology has shifted the way we think (we choose our own ring tone!).
- Digital natives – a freshman entering college today has never lived without the Internet.
- People need info 24/7 and 365. We need to not only deliver, but also to figure out where to deliver.
- If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th largest country in the world!
- Libraries in the future will need to be marketed as if their livelihood depends upon it (it does!).
D. Ethel Salonen, MITRE Corporation (past-president of SLA) (SPECIAL)
- In special libraries, we don’t think about library as place, because there is no library. We don’t use that word.
- In a corporate setting, library is not the central place to come to. It is more of an embedded environment; in many cases actually embedded with the client.
- The trends they are seeing are related to technology. Must be extremely confident about technology skills. That’s something they look for in the staff they hire.
- Intellipedia
- SLIM’s Information Management certificate – that’s the kind of people they need. When she looks at applicants, she looks for ones that went to an I school rather than an L school.
E. Susan Hamada, Associate Director, Salt Lake County Library, Utah (PUBLIC)
- Susan is a member of the SLIM advisory board.
- OCLC recent report
- Changing role… becoming expert guides – becoming partners with users.
- Becoming cultural and educational hubs in the community
- People want convenience.
- Until universal preschool is in place, we are the library for preschoolers.
- Need to reach people who are not using the library — need to get out of the library.
- Information literacy – how-to find information and how-to evaluate it, too. Needing to know how-to use information.
- Library as place — when you build, how do you know what you will want in the future? Raised floors… so if you need to change cabling in the future. Configuring meeting space so that it can accommodate large groups and small groups.
- For every project they engage in, they ask “who are our partners?”
- They are a physical space and also thinking about their online presence.
- They are starting to mail out materials (Netflix model).
