1) Perspectives: Libraries are evolving. I enjoyed reading the five perspectives on the future direction of libraries. I found Rick Anderson's three iceberg concerns to be concisely stated and compelling. I know that I have often been stymied, through the years, by the hours kept or not kept by my local community library or university library. The 2.0 Library will need to have round-the-clock access, certainly for its cyber patrons, if not it's physical patrons. It's like adding another dimension of space and time to the traditional library facility. He makes a valid point about amassing the 'just-in-case' collection. His university library has seen a 55% drop in use of its collection in a little more than the past decade. He advocates rethinking the whole collection process. (Personally, I am not ready to let go of the library building with its colorfully illustrated children's picture books. So I hope he doesn't mean that!). He advises that services for patrons must be user-friendly. Avoid those that would require a lot of training for the consumer. Consumers must be able to quickly and readily access information so they can spend their time reading and creating, rather than figuring out how to use an interface.
Anderson states that for libraries and librarians to maintain their professional stature, we will have to adapt to the 'radical fundamental changes in the marketplace' one library at a time.
2) Library 2.0. As stated above, like many entities in this, the Age of Technology or technological revolution, libraries are evolving. Rapid changes in computer and web technology are creating global change in information technology and in the expectations of consumers. For school libraries to stay up-to-date will present challenges. Administrators need to be on board with developing brain friendly libraries. There are some logistical issues given the current physical space configurations of many school libraries. Libraries will need to house more technology in their space so consumers can access any number of internet
services for research and creating. I have seen some libraries in our district in which the design has a full computer lab adjacent to the library or enough computers in the library for a class of students to use. Hopefully future designs can be implemented in which the computers can be more integrated into the interior design to make a more comfortable and aesthetically appealing configuration. If, as Rick Anderson (noted above) predicts and hard-copy print collections are reduced, that would free up space for computers and other technology.
Librarians will need to keep very current with web 2.0 and other technological advances.
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