Thing #15

Library 2.0 and the Future of Libraries:

I read Away From Icebergs by Rick Anderson. He compared the librarian profession to a boat. He stated that he felt all librarians are rowing heroically, but are not prepared for disasters that are in their path and he called them icebergs. He talked about 3 icebergs.

First is the "just in case" collection. He states that building a comprehensive collection no longer makes sense because of all the new technology.

Second iceberg is reliance on use education. He states that libraries are poorly equipped and insufficiently staffed for teaching. If you think about this, he is right. One librarian for the whole school! The ratio would be about 900 to 1 at some schools, more at other schools. He states that the library services need to be fixed, not the patron. He also mentioned some web sites that offer promising models for user-centric service.

The third and last iceberg he talks about is the "come to us" library model. In the past if you needed certain information you had no choice but to go to the library to do your research. He feels that the library services and content should be put on the web.

He ended by stating that we need to shift directions and we don't have time to wait for the big ship of the profession to change. The change will be one library- one little boat- at a time.

I agree with a lot of what he is saying. In education change is NEVER easy and always comes with a price. We need to look at how our students live and learn and do our best to adjust the whole of education, libraries included, to reflect this.