Comments on: The actual future of the library http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/ the neverending reference interview of life Fri, 17 May 2013 00:38:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: The Radical Patron – extreme thoughts on public libraries – http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-494 Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:00:58 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-494 [...] ♦ Leaders, sherpas and teachers in our libraries ♦ Seth Godin and the Future of Libraries ♦ The actual future of the library ♦ Seth Godin is wrong about the future of the [...]

]]> By: Dismantling the Echo Chamber « Agnostic, Maybe http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-425 Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:17:41 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-425 [...] egregious misrepresentation of what libraries are doing and where they are going. (As I wrote so in my post regarding his entry.)  But, without a similar platform or venue, we were left to equivalent of talking amongst [...]

]]> By: Thinking Outloud About The Echo Chamber | Librarian by Day http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-402 Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:02:47 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-402 [...] a just a recent incident I could use to make a point. I was and am thrilled to see so many great people responding to and thinking about this issue. You’ll have to forgive me, but I have to say it [...]

]]> By: thewikiman » Blog Archive » #echolib – the Seth Godin Uber-Echo Disaster http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-381 Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:23:38 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-381 [...] above (and more) and really broke down what he said and set him straight. Andy Woodworth wrote an excellent article about it, in which he provided a list of quite a few of the other good responses, which I’ve copied [...]

]]> By: thewikiman http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-380 Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:57:17 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-380 Dave, I used to be very uneasy about the term customer, but now I think of it is a neccessary evil. It does indeed tie the library to a commercial model, but that’s kind of neccessary now as libraries need to be run along business lines even while they remain public institutions, for me. I don’t mean charging for books, but agressive marketing and all of that stuff.

Andy this is a brilliant post – the whole movement to respond to Seth’s original piece has been inspiring. But what I worry about is that, due to the inability to comment on Seth’s actual blog itself, we’re only responding to oursleves, ie other Information Professionals. All the library-skeptics who absorbed Seth’s original words sadly won’t be aware of the eloquent and passionate responses that refute them here and in the other posts you mention…

]]> By: The Future of the Library, yet again | Bright ideas http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-362 Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:15:05 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-362 [...] Andy Woodworth, “The Actual Future of the Library” [...]

]]> By: Bruce http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-352 Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:40:37 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-352 I second your comments that there is some media format judgement going on here (i.e. books are good, DVDs are somehow less virtuous).

On the point of information not being free, I agree with what you say but I would add this perspective. In a world of ever increasing information volume, the filtering provided by libraries and librarians becomes even more valuable. Librarians provide this in several different ways (e.g. information literacy training, cataloguing etc).

As a Canadian much interested in America, I have long been puzzled by the seeming great interest in education as a private activity (e.g. many of America’s greatest universities are private – Harvard, Yale, etc) but public investment seems so weak. The documentary Two Million Minutes has me thinking more and more about this.

]]> By: Raina http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-351 Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:16:13 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-351 The problem with using “customer” is all definitions of the word connote an exchange of capital (I’m using the OED), which is expressly not happening in a patron-librarian interaction. And, as Dave notes above, using customer slides our discourse in the direction of corporatist ways of thinking, i.e. – thinking in terms of “customer service” rather than a reference interview or describing the library quantitatively rather than qualitatively when asserting our value to the communities of which we are a part. Because of these reasons, I use patron, user, citizen, researcher, reader, person, community member, student, etc. rather than customer.

]]> By: Andy http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-348 Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:09:02 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-348 You are most welcome.

]]> By: Andy http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-347 Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:08:48 +0000 http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/01/11/the-actual-future-of-the-library/#comment-347 Thanks for your comment. It is greatly appreciated!

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