LISNews: Librarian News

Jill Stover revisits the idea of co-creation in libraries and how best to make it work for us and for patrons. "I've been thinking about it quite often, but so far have generated a collection of ideas, rather than a coherent philosophy, but at least it's a start. I would agree with one marketer's statement that services make tricky candidates for co-creation because many services exist because customers don't want to take on the task of performing those services themselves."

Remember Department Stores? Stephen Abrams Asks Remember department stores? They tried to be everything to everyone. He also asks: "Do libraries try to be everything for everyone? Are we too diverse and unspecialized? Can we build a community presence that engages people in a positioning of libraries that isn't overly homogenized? What positioning do you want for your library brand? Who do we want to excite?"

Mark Y. Herring said the Internet is no substitute for a library in 2001. Now, in 2006, in an effort to save our profession, strike a blow for librarians, and, above all, correct the well-intentioned but misguided notions about what the future holds, here are 10 reasons why the Internet will soon be a substitute for the library for many people.

1. Everything I Need IS On The Internet.
2. Catalog This!
3. Quality Control Does Exist
4. Nothing Is Perfect
5. Check Out Dan Brown's Bytes @Your Library
6. The Ebook Is Coming
7. Look Ma, No Books!
8. Everything Is Born Digital
9. We No Longer Care What Was Written In 1970
10. The Internet Is Already Ubiquitous And Portable. -- Read More

An interesting post from over at Christina's LIS Rant raises an interesting point. She's taking a look at the seminal work in the communication literature from Clark and Brennan (1993) on common ground. It discusses how common ground is established in conversation and also reviews how features of different communications channels help/constrain grounding and how common ground can be different when communicating over different channels. For example, e-mail is reviewable and revisable, but not cotemporal or audible (in the traditional view). Common ground is established via the least collaborative effort required for the channel.

"I think the blogosphere has talked more about links establishing common ground in that they establish a common history and context. I link to librarians therefore I have an affinity towards librarians and/or I am one. More of placeing a person in their discipline via their blogroll and linking... but blogs are conversation..."