Category: Carrie's Musings    

Here’s an interesting read, Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of Blink and the Tipping Point, had a quote about libraries. Read the full article at NY Magazine

But here’s the library part: Gladwell is a young person’s idea of an old person’s idea of a young person. Beneath the crazy hair, the slobby-chic clothes, and the buzzword-filled vocabulary is an old-fashioned guy who grew up among Mennonites in rural Ontario, didn’t have a TV until he was 23, and still prefers to do most of his research at the NYU library. Google is something of a personal hobbyhorse: “Google is the answer to the problem we didn’t have. It doesn’t tell you what’s interesting or what’s important. There’s still more in the library than there is on Google.”

What does that tell you about how libraries are perceived by young and old? Our libraries will continue to keep the brilliant minds coming in the doors as long as we continue to provide them with access to worlds beyond their own.

Feel free to post comments.

Check out this article from the NYT: Start Writing the Eulogies for Print Encyclopedias

For better or worse, it looks like the printed encyclopedia is soon to be on it’s way out. Many other print publications will or already have followed suit. Our profession will likely always have some debate of print content versus online format and content, but libraries can’t hide from the fact that the printed encyclopedia and maybe even someday, the printed book as we know it will be fading away in times of technology.
What role must public libraries play to ensure that the gap between the computer literate customer with high speed internet access at home and the person visiting the library, seeking only simple answers, doesn’t swallow us whole?
How might you keep your library relevant in a future world of expensive and personalized reading devices in the hands of those who have and very little in the hands of those who have not?
Finding that balance in serving our populations will be a dilemma. Is it time to refocus our mission to have the greatest impact on those who need it most?

First came the web, then web 2.0, now articles are beginning to discuss Web 3.0. This article in Newsweek discusses that Web 3.0 will bring back mediated content and may shun user created content.
Revenge of the Experts [Newsweek]
What do you think? Let’s start some district discussion.
What does Library 3.0 look like to you?
What do you think the role of staff would be?
How does this change the future education of librarians?
What is the role of the librarian in a 3.0 world?

In my spare time, I recently came across a website that I found very interesting: http://www.edge.org/.   The site is primarily aimed at scientists, but since librarians are really jacks of all trades with our abilities to navigate information, I spent a bit of time looking at the site and its premise.  Each year, the group asks one question and then compiles the list of responses…

 Since I am a librarian, and this is a library blog, I wanted to pose the same question to us, as professionals in the library world, so I’m limiting the freedom and changing the spirit of Edge’s activity enough so as not interfere with copyright. 

Feel free to respond on the blog.  Anyone with a login can post comments and their own thoughtful response to this:

Since you first started working in libraries, what have you changed your mind about and why? 

I’m always looking for new and interesting ideas to share with libraries.  Recently I read an article in Harvard Business Review (check it out on EBSCO Host, POWER Library if you’re in PA) called Performing a Project Premortem.  The article gave an idea for better project management: in the planning phases of a new project work with your team backwards.  1.  Start out with a basic idea of your plan. 2.  Then with other team  members, imagine the project failed.  3.  Each should make a list of possible reasons why the project failed.   

As everyone shares the potential reasons in a round robin fashion, it gives teams a chance to discuss and plan for potential failures.  It helps the team to discuss risks in an environment where not as much is invested.  Everyone is able to share their ideas in an open forum that can head off problems before they start.  As a benefit, when the project is executed, team members will also be keenly aware of areas of danger and will be careful in their evaluation steps.   

Sometimes we all need some help to plan a project.  Trying this perspective, from the business world, not necessarily the not-for-profit library world, is a new tool to try.