libraries

As with many questions about the future of technology, I’m afraid that the only completely honest answer to the questions in the title of this post is probably “I don’t know and neither does anyone else”. So pardon me while I make a provisional attempt to answer this unanswerable question.

Chris Anderson's (Wired Magazine’s editor-in-chief and author of The Long Tail) articles are always worth reading, but his latest: “In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits," is especially interesting in its implications for libraries and librarians.

Teaching, learning and research have always been social activities involving heavy reliance on trust, reputation and brand awareness., and these social aspects of information seeking behavior grow more prevalent every year. This natural tendency to seek reliable, community-validated information sources has traditionally drawn people to libraries for two reasons.

Trying to understand ARRA, NOFA, BTOP, and all of the other lingo surrounding the broadband stimulus programs?

If you've been following the economic stimulus bill (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 or ARRA) and its impact on libraries, you know that it allocates $7.2 billion to encourage investment in America's broadband infrastructure. Of that money, $200 million has been specifically allocated to expand public computing capacity in libaries and community colleges.

I normally blog about library technology, but I'd like to take a break from that today and do a fun post from the "great writers in the library" genre. I've heard a million of these stories, but I never get tired of them (btw, does anyone know of a site where they're collected?). This one is the story of Carl Sagan's first visit to the library from Cosmos (pg. 133):

If you’re interested in learning what Internet access and Web 2.0 technologies can do in terms of education and empowerment at the global level, take a look at Rising Voices. Rising Voices is an outreach project funded by the Knight Foundation that awards micro-grants to social media training initiatives and citizen journalism projects in underrepresented parts of the world. Their grants are supporting local efforts that teach people how to tell their stories digitally through blogs, podcasts, video blogs and other tools.

Kudos to Louise Alcorn and Kami Griffiths for making the potentially dull topic of policies anything but dull! Today’s 30-minute webinar provided a lot of food for thought in a short amount of time. I was familiar with Louise and her work before the webinar because she literally wrote the book on wireless networking in libraries. During the webinar, however, I also discovered that she and my friend and fellow Johnson County (KS) resident Josh Neff are old pals! Josh was a webinar participant today, too, and told me that he and Louise went to summer camp together many, many years ago and recently got in touch again on Facebook – ah, it’s a wonderfully small and socially networked world!

Libraries have been quite successful using wish lists to expose their needs. When a community member sees something tangible they can donate, such as a printer or a bookshelf, they often feel motivated to help out. This is not a new idea. At the Rural Library Sustainability Workshop, libraries shared stories of televisions, paint, art supplies, and other commodities community members donated.