Saturday, October 17, 2009

Shift Again! Libraries and the Near Future - II

The Library's traditional approach, products, and services will continue to be valued. That is not going away.

In spite of every technology change we have had since the first communications were chiseled into stone, talking, hearing, and seeing will remain the first line of use for humans. They existed first. Long before reading, typing, and searching. They will not change.

Face to face contact and a physical community is still valued and will remain valued by customers in the near future. There is still a strong need for in-person reference services, circulation help, community gathering places, and privacy.

Current event notifcations, whether by snail-mail, the homepage, email, twitter, in-person, or other social media, will be valued

Current services will still be valued. Continue with online card registration and fine payments. Enable reading lists and shared lists. Keep notifying users by mail, email, and phone number.

Keep making those catalogs easier and easier to use

Maintain your desire and push for better search engines that will search across your many subscription databases. Work toward getting that homepage configured for mobile access.

These things are working for libraries in the 2.0 world. Keep them. We are falling headlong into 3.0. Even as we do, the need for pre-internet and 2.0 services will continue for a very long time.

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