Thing #15

http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/10/a-vision-of-students-today-what-teachers-must-do/

Let me start off this post by encouraging to watch the above video. I was completely astounded by it. It made me question who I am as an educator. It made me question what society is doing to education. It made me question what meaningful education should look like. The link below the video will take you the a blog with comments from the professor who oversaw this project.

Free access for all has been at the heart of libraries since day one. I guess my question then is why are so many librarians hesitant to embrace the Library 2.0 concept which by its very nature increases access? I think that some librarians need to reexamine their attachment to books, and expand it to be a love of information. After all, what is there to really LOVE about BOOKS? I myself love books. But honestly, if I really think about it, it's the content, tucked inside of the smell-good covers and pretty bindings that I really love. Without that content, or information, a book is just a cardboard cover with letters on the spine. It's the love of the content that I want to share with the world, and while my life has been filled with beautiful content printed on paper, and wrapped in covers, there are people out there who are falling in love with content written on a computer screen and I have to make sure they have access to that.

I love what Michael Stephens had to say about the Librarian 2.0 http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/3.htm:

The Librarian 2.0:

- Plans for their users

- Embraces Web 2.0 tools

- Controls Technolust

- Makes good, fast decisions

- Is a trendspotter

- Gets content

Rick Anderson makes some very though provoking statements in his blog post: http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm

He questions the need for a "just in case" collection of print materials. Since the beginning of libraries, information has been scarce. Libraries prided themselves on having print information that their patrons could not gain access to on their own. Today, information is not scarce, so patrons come to the library with the expectation that they can access the information. I guess the question then is what will we offer them at the library that they won't be able to find on Google? He also boldly states that "...if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons". Think about that for a second. Are we so worried about being disposable that we are holding on to services that require patrons to "need" us?

I don't know about you, but my mind is churning. We need to be asking ourselves what the library should look like today instead of thinking about how it should look in the future. The future is here!