All this talk of new technology and the future of libraries has led me to start thinking of another common issue: Library users.
Now, all of us librarians know that it's important to provide free access to information resources, including reference collections, and online resources. It's their right as members of society, and it's our obligation as the public facilitators of information.
However, the reality is that the majority of library users use public libraries for its other main purpose - as a community recreational hub that supplies books, music, dvds to support lifestyle and entertainment needs.
Now there's nothing wrong with this. It's great, in my opinion. However, a great deal of resources in public libraries is spent on promoting information literacy for using the library's reference services that, in some cases, are just not used at all.
If it's not used in a public library, is there any point in having it? Or should we just we purely a recreational lifestyle service, and direct any "serious" library users to the state/territory library?
Should Information Literacy really be on our agenda, or should that be left to academic and state-level libraries?
2 comments:
We can't leave all the info literacy to the State and academic libraries, because most of our users will never go there. Its our responsibility, even if only a small portion of our users avail themselves of our information content.
Oh I totally agree. I also believe that we should be encouraging staff to be learning things about information resources for the sake of learning, regardless of how useful it is to their job. However, it might be suggested by some that this kind of attitude is a poor allocation of resources.
Personally, I believe that there has to be a way of reaching out to users with info lit that's more effective that "learn how to send an email" or "learn how to browse the web".
Maybe we need "Computer Storytime" for adults - get a computer and a projector happening, and give a live demonstration with a "storytime" theme. And then sing a song about RSS feeds, complete with actions.
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