Reading Notes #1

Content, Not Containers
This article gives a few statistics, and several predictions, showing how the transfer of information has been changing in the last several years. It covers most of the common technologies being used today by consumers of information, particularly those that involve the Internet. One major implication of all this is that distributors of content, such as libraries, must determine how to use these new methods to get their resources out to others. The article even suggests that libraries should alter their services, working to provide customers with more personalized content. This is a reasonable idea, as it seems that any kind of content provider today must work to customize their services to work with today's technologies, and to meet the expectations of modern consumers of information. Libraries today, it seems, have in fact attempted this, with catalogs going on-line, full articles or at least abstracts from periodicals being available in databases, and students having access to e-books and the like through university libraries' web pages.

Information Literacy and Information Technology Literacy
Since it is from 1998, this paper discusses some things that have changed quite a bit. While the need for both information literacy and information technology literacy has certainly increased since then, students do not seem to have fallen behind. One thing that the author could not be expected to have predicted is that students would come to understand much of the technology needed on their own, outside of the classroom. The use of search engines, for instance, was not taught to my generation in a classroom, but because of their helpfulness in academic activities, most students figured out how to use them, often with each other's help. While it is still important to keep in mind that people must be educated in information literacy and information technology, this education may often be as much a side-effect of studies as the focus of them.

Lied Library & four years
This case study describes the creation and, in more detail, the maintenance and enhancement of a technologically advanced (for its time, at least) library. The author makes it pretty clear to the reader that keeping all the technology in such an institution running is no small task. In the case of Lied Library, the author (who may of course be somewhat biased) seems to believe that everything was planned fairly well. This writing illustrates how such a library, or indeed any institution with a similar level of technology, requires a great amount of planning, resources, staff, and determination to keep functioning. One concern that is only hinted at in this case study, but seems to be important nonetheless, is just how much control to give users over public computers. Students are typically given more, but just how much should they be allowed to do? “Community patrons” must be more restricted, but how much restriction is too much?