Thursday, July 26, 2012

What do we still do in public libraries?

Cynthia Parkhill shelving books at Middletown Library
Still plenty for me (and Michelle McLean) to do at our public libraries

 What is information and what is it we still do in public libraries? Quite a lot according to Michelle McLean, blogging at Connecting Librarian:

“Some of the ways my library provides information as well as access to it include:
  • Non-fiction lending collections including DVDs and audio-books
  • Magazines
  • Daily newspapers
  • Internet connectivity, both via PC and WiFi to access the wider world of information (amongst other things)
  • Electronic resources
  • Short seminars on a wide range of topics
  • Library staff, who help people find the information they need, either in our collections or on the Internet
  • Library staff who share local knowledge to help people find what they need in the local community
  • Local history collection
  • Outreach visits, to not only promote the library, but to help those being visited fulfill their needs – with that resource the library has
  • School visits to again showcase what they library can do, but to also help with information literacy skills
  • Teaching our users information literacy skills
  • Teaching our users computer skills
  • And much, much more ...”
My thanks to ALA Techsource for sharing this essay on Twitter.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Robust debate and even unusual opinions are encouraged, but please stay on-topic and be respectful. Comments are subject to review for personal attacks or insults, discriminatory statements, hyperlinks not directly related to the discussion and commercial spam.