lfa

Changing Roles of Academic and Research Libraries. An interesting essay

As higher education in the U.S. has evolved through recent decades, college and university libraries also have forged pathways to serve faculty and students more effectively. Academic and research libraries have been early adopters of digital technologies and have provided leadership and training to help remake the academic enterprise. And yet, for all their success in accommodating and even powering recent transformations in higher education, libraries and the librarians who lead them now find themselves asking a series of fundamental questions:

• To what extent, and in what ways, are academic libraries likely to change?
• What new roles will librarians come to have in the changing information environment?
• What aspects of the academic library will prove the most resistant or impervious to change?
• Will technology finally spur a recasting of how colleges and universities produce and disseminate knowledge? If such a merging of interests takes place, what impact will that have on academic libraries? Or conversely, if there is not a merging of these two agendas, will academic libraries be caught in the middle of an increasingly difficult competition for institutional resources?

ACRL Vice-President Julie Todaro’s commentary on the essay is also interesting.

FYI - Library Journal has a news item on LibraryFind in the March 15 issue - Oregon Debuts LibraryFind

This is interesting in light of recent discussion of the selection processes in the news.  I hadn’t realized that OSU had revamped its process to this degree.rnhttp://insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/02/holistic

Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community, and their guest George Lorenzo, President and CEO of Lorenzo Associates, Inc. invite you to join the next Blended Librarian community event, “Surfing Through Noise™: Riding the Online Knowledge Wave” On Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 3 pm. EST.

Event Description: “Surfing Through Noise™: Riding the Online Knowledge Wave” is a book-in-progress and an online portal in Beta, created by education journalist, author and publisher George Lorenzo, that probes into a two-pronged question: What is the World Wide Web, and how do we deal with? Surfing Through Noise (STN) addresses the developments occurring in the world of information and communications technologies (ICT) by providing an overview of our changing online landscape. STN emphasizes Web 2.0, with views of the blogosphere, the participatory web and culture, social networking and bookmarking, citizen journalism, reader-recommended news websites, video logs, information literacy and fluency, ubiquitous computing, and much more. STN takes a swipe at some very broad topics related to how we are discovering and using ICT to grow and prosper intellectually. STN is also a synthesis of many interviews conducted with web pundits, academic leaders, academic librarians and pretty much anybody and everybody George could find who has a solid reputation for providing smart, trustworthy, and authoritative information about how we are living our lives in the Digital Age.

Although this event is free, advance registration is required to reserve a virtual seat. If you are already a member of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community here is a link into the Learning Times Network that will get you to our Community and the registration page:

http://home.learningtimes.net/library?go=1199293

If you need to join the Blended Librarians Online Community in order to register (no fee to join):

1. Go to the Blended Librarian website at http://blendedlibrarian.org
2. Click on the “Join” button on the home page of Blendedlibrarian.org and follow the instructions.
3. After you receive confirmation of your Learning Times account you can return to this email message and use the link above for registered members of Learning Times. Click on the link, and then register on the next page (you may need to scroll down to see the register button).
4. We recommend that those participating in the webcast obtain a microphone or headset in order to make use of the VoIP technology that allows conversation between the speakers and participants. A microphone or headset is not required to participate.
5. Please plan on allowing yourself sufficient time to log in to the webcast on March 22, 2007. If it is the first time attending a Learning Times event it may take a few extra minutes to log on to their Elluminate webcasting software. Once you have registered for the event you may wish to try the “test room” to make sure your computer is set up and ready to go the day of the webcast.