Library Futures: Redesigning Today's Public Services 11/12/10

This was a College of DuPage teleconference lead by Marie Radford. The discussion revolved around reference services and how they are in transition. She talked about the increased need for collaboration and consortial involvement; librarians no longer need to be the Lone Reference Desk Ranger.
The influence of mobile applications was discussed; this ties with the last College of DuPage teleconference on Libraries & the Mobile Technologies Landscape held on 9/24/10. She gave examples of augmented reality (AR app) and Quick Response Codes (QR Codes). (The 9/24/10 presentation also discussed QR Codes!)
She devoted a good portion of time to the discussion of outreach. Whether that is a public library with a drive-up window (interesting considering that had been on the table for the new Marshall-Lyon County Library building), or an academic library like Penn State University that has an "ASK Cart" that travels around campus with a librarian (a.k.a. Library Dude) at the helm. She also referenced Cornell University's tiered system of having a non-professional librarian staffing the Information Desk so that professional librarians could spend the majority of their time doing professional duties and be called upon as needed to answer true reference questions. (I recall a similar model in place at the University of Iowa when I was completing my graduate program there.) She noted that 85% of questions that come to the Information/Reference Desk are NOT reference questions. She also mentioned a small liberal arts college (Franklin & Marshall) whose librarians make "House Calls" to the academic departments. All of these examples demonstrate ways librarians can make themselves available at the point-of-need while at the same time help change perceptions of librarians (i.e., we're not all waiting behind an intimidating desk for people to approach us).
In response to a listener question about the future of print reference, Marie answered an unequivocal "Print Reference is Dead." She specifically mentioned that the Oxford English Dictionary is 100% an electronic product now and that Encyclopedia Britannica in print has been declining in sales since 1990. This reminded me that my 10-year-old daughter just asked me this week if we have an encyclopedia set at home. I responded that we (along with all Minnesotans) have access to a great encyclopedia online, so we don't need a print one in the house. She responded, "I thought so." :)
Marie's presentation concluded with her thoughts that as librarians we need to continue to thrive and move forward embracing the technologies our patrons are using and find ways to meet them in that environment.

Library Futures: Libraries & the Mobile Technologies Landscape - 9/24/10

This was a College of DuPage teleconference with Joe Murphy, Yale Librarian, as the primary presenter. One of his initial comments was that using mobile technology has become standard and is not a passing fad - therefore libraries need to engage in this, particularly school and public libraries. He discussed a few mobile technologies: texting, mobile applications, and location-based services.
He also emphasized Mobile Literacy and how important it is for librarians to gain familiarity with a variety of mobile technologies and to be aware of the impact of the mobile technology on our patrons.
He discussed four mobile technologies he believes we all have to be familiar with:
1) text messaging
2) mobile applications
3) mobile web pages (he referenced Amazon's Kindle Store and Tech Crunch)
4) Twitter -- although he brought in another speaker via Skype to discuss this, he is a really big fan of Twitter -- here's his link: http://twitter.com/libraryfuture
A few examples he gave of how Twitter could be used by libraries/librarians were to post library news/happenings, to provide a link to a "New Items" list, to attend conferences via hashtags, or write 140-character book reviews. It was also mentioned that 10/1/10 is Follow a Library Day on Twitter!

Two current trends he referenced were:
1) Location - specifically location-based services. These answer the question "Where are You?" vs. the "What are you Doing?" that Twitter fulfills. The most common example of location based services that he provided was FourSquare. He refers to this as the "check-in culture."
2) QR Codes -- this was a new term and concept to me - I will have to do some investigating into this! I believe they are 2-dimensional barcodes that can be read by a Smartphone.

Yet another speaker chimed in (Lisa Carlucci Thomas from Southern Connecticut State University) to talk about e-books and e-readers. She pointed out that e-books have been around for about a decade, but it's just been in the past couple of years that the e-readers have become more commonplace. She talked briefly about the issues of digital ownership and referenced incompatible DRM -- we are encountering this topic at my college now with a new e-book being used for one of our microcomputer courses. This book requires a specific DRM before the book can be downloaded. Lisa commented that librarians need to have an understanding of device compatibility regarding e-readers.

Joe did also reference that there can be a heavy personnel cost to implementing some of these technologies. There needs to be an understanding of that both by the staff involved as well as administration. Decisions need to be made about where time and emphasis will be spent. We all know technology is a quickly changing environment so sometimes it is difficult to know which tools and technologies to move ahead with...as Joe said sometimes we'll have to "be willing to be wrong."

Thanks to Minitex for offering librarians the opportunity to listen to these College of DuPage teleconferences.