The Future of the Library
How the Library Ecosystem is Evolving to
Support 21st Century Information Demands

Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 • Time: 12:00 pm EST/9:00 am PST/1700 GMT
Free Registration: www.libraryjournal.com/futureofthelibrary


Please Join Us for this Special 1-hour Webcast Featuring Three Industry Notables

Libraries are continuing to evolve and are using new technologies to expand their presence as virtual knowledge centers for information sharing communities. Patrons conducting research remotely are increasingly using mobile devices and accessing resources in multiple languages.

Librarians as 21st century knowledge technologists as well as electronic information experts need to offer easily accessible library-specific solutions tailored to the unique data and information needs of their users. Technology solution providers are working with publishers and are moving towards more sharing of data, interoperability standards and electronic workflow required to meet these needs.

Listen to three industry notables share their view of how the industry is responding and changing to meet these evolving needs of the library ecosystem using today’s emerging technologies to meet the needs of patrons today and for the future.

If you are not able to make the inaugural webcast of The Future of the Library, you will be able to access the webcast archive for one year following the initial webcast, and will receive an email from Library Journal as soon as it is available. Just register using the links above.

How do you create a disturbance in the collection management area?  Sneak up on Mary Ruth on her last day of work upon retiring and catch her working! Boy was she surprised by the camera and sneaky photographer. 

But wait, what’s that commotion?  Kristin and Joanne can’t wait for their own retirment day and they get in on the celebration!

 But wait…another retiree.  Judy jumps in and now no one can keep a straight face.

Ok stop clowning around – now its time for the (relatively) serious shot

And finally, Mary Ruth and her long-time colleague Bill Warren pose for their own photo.

What a day!  We will miss all our retires – it won’t be as fun here without them.  More photos can be found on the server in the path N:\Orgs\LIS\LISstaff\People & Social\MaryRuth Crawford Retirement.

CQ Researcher is one of the resources the library subscribes to.  This week’s topic seems very relevant and timely for us. Quoting from their email announcement:

“Future of Books” by Sarah Glazer, May 29, 2009 Will traditional print books disappear?

The migration of books to electronic screens has been accelerating with the introduction of mobile reading on Kindles, iPhones and Sony Readers and the growing power of Google’s Book Search engine. Even the book’s form is mutating as innovators experiment with adding video, sound and computer graphics to text. Some fear a loss of literary writing and reading, others of the world’s storehouse of knowledge if it all goes digital. A recent settlement among Google, authors and publishers would make more out-of-print books accessible online, but some worry about putting such a vast trove of literature into the hands of a private company. So far, barely 1 percent of books sold in the United States are electronic. Still, the economically strapped publishing industry is under pressure to do more marketing and publishing online as younger, screen-oriented readers replace today’s core buyers – middle-aged women.

• Will the Google Book Search settlement restrict public access to digital books?
• Will traditional print books disappear from the marketplace?
• Will literary reading and writing survive online?

To read the Overview of this week’s report, click here.
To view this week’s entire report on CQ Researcher Online, click here.

Wonder how we get new library databases?  Librarians are inundated by offers for new databases as well as offers to migrate existing resources to online versions or new platforms, which we investigate for relevancy to the curriculum, ease of use, cost, etc.  The publishers often give us “trial” access for online resources so we can try before we buy.  We currently get a number of statistical publications from the IMF (Int’l Monetary Fund) in print format and/or CD-Rom.  We have trial access to the online versions until May 31st.  (single user access to the online should cost about the same as what we currently pay for print/cd-roms).  Try them out and see if you can figure out how to use them.  Comments to me are welcome.  Here are the databases:

International Financial Statistics

Direction of Trade Statistics

Balance of Payments

Government Finance Statistics

These are also on the Economics Subject Guide go/econguide and the new databases/trials page go/trials

Axinn Center Winter Garden continuing through August 31st.

Description:

If you are based in the main library, you may have noticed signs advertising this new service (I’m campus mailing color signs to the branches today).  A company called Mosio offers a “text a librarian” service but we’re not calling it that but instead are using it for LIS in general.  Our users can use a cell phone to anonomously text a message to the number 66746 but they must start the message with the word midd (this gets the messsage to us and not some other library).  The message gets sent to a special webpage setup for us where we see the question and can respond backto their phone using our computers rather than a phone ourselves.  Our responses are limited to 320 characters.  Librarians are monitoring this for now and if a message comes in for another area of LIS, we can forward the message or act as intermediaries.  A few people at the helpdesk (Shawn and the helpdesk students) and circ desk (Elin) have seen the system and I am happy to train anyone else who’d like to participate.  We have this service free for a year, so we are trying it out to see how our users like it.  If you have questions, just ask me.

The conference will be held May 12th and 13th at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in S. Burlington.  This year’s theme is: “Speaking Up! Advocacy for Libraries”.  Our own former Dean Barbara Doyle-Wilch is one of the co-chairs of the conference.  Featured speakers include Chris Bohjalian, Marshall Keys, Wayne Piper, Keith Curry Lance, and Jan Reynolds.  Mark Nash will perform “Underneath the Lintel”.  The highlight of Tues. will surely be the advocacy cocktail party “Celebrate Vermont Libraries” (can you guess which committee I’m on) which will feature displays highlighting the impact of VT libraries on our users.  Many politicians and officials have been invited (did I say the theme is advocacy?).  See the conference website for all the details. http://www.vermontlibraryconference.org/index.html

April 24th from 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm

Open to all library staff, trustees, friends, and other interested parties.

Visit the NELINET Event Details for more information:  https://www.nelinet.net/eaccount/EventDetail.aspx?eventid=00000948

Contact C&SL Section President Larraby Fellows to RSVP and to get login information. larraby.fellows@ccv.edu

For anyone using Facebook (or thinking about joining), this is useful information: