The winds of change are coming and if libraries and similar institutions want to prosper they will have to change also. There has been a shift over the past decade, quickly speeding up over the past few years of the way content is received. Generally an individual would get the information they needed from books, journals, newspaper, and other physical media.
That dynamic has shifted fairly recently, getting away from these sorts of physical media to formats that are more and more digital. The amount of emails sent throughout the world everyday has continued to increase at a staggering rate. There has also be a boom in the market for smart phones, devices that are much more then a regular cell phone, that allows people to get the internet and digital information delivered to them anywhere.
Specifically when it comes to libraries there has been a shift away from physical publishing of books to that of digital publishing of electronic books. There is also a new market for micro information with such things as digital music downloads, ring tones, downloads to wireless devices etc.; a market that will surely grow over the coming years. The key will be how will libraries respond to these trends so they can continue to prosper.
Information Literacy and Information Technology Literacy:
Information Technology literacy is the understanding of the technological structures and applications that enable information to be delivered. This can entail an understanding of the way that the web works. Information technology literacy also deals with an understanding of the economic and public policy issues that deal with these forms of technology.
Information literacy deals more with the content and the way it is communicated. Information literacy involves the necessary skills to use technology for gathering information. Specific examples involve finding information and analyzing the information. Information literacy also involves an understating the multitude of forms information can take.
Lied Library:
The fever pace at which technology continues to improve, ever increasingly coming close to giving exactly what the user want poses problems to institutions that want to keep up with this change. The case study of Lied library at the campus of UNLV illustrates nicely the unique challenges that occur. Because of the pace that computers continue to get better and better, computers becomes obsolute in a fairly quick span of time. Instutions which wish to keep up this technological change will have to repace computers and other technological infrustructure. This is a problem, because changing these forms of infrustructure can be quite costly and these sorts of institutions will be hard press to come up with the money needed. Not only does computer hardware become better over time so does computure software, which must be replaced regularly at a cost also. Probably the biggest challange is responding to the needs of users, who will constantly demand new ways to find the information they need. These questions including the problem of space challange the staff of these instutuins and will for many years to come.
Muddiest Point:
This week I do not have a muddiest point since there was introductory information this week.
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