LISNews: Librarian News

Lorcan Dempsey Takes A Look at the many "long tail" discussions and says the real issue is how well supply and demand are articulated in a network environment. And when we think about it in this systemwide way the picture is less reassuring. Think of two figures. The first is that ILLs account for 1.7% of overall circulations. The second is about circulation.He says Libraries do indeed collectively manage a long tail of research, learning and cultural materials. However, we need to do more work to make sure that that long tail is directly available to improve the work and lives of our users.

Talk Of The Nation Covered Libraries yesterday. The "Bookless Library." Is it a contradiction in terms, or a sign of the times? Information technology changes as soon we think we understand it. With mammoth collections to maintain, libraries are struggling to keep up -- and to redefine their role.

If you're like me (And you know you want to be) you roll your eyes everytime you see someone writing about "WEB 2.0." Joey sent over a link to Web 2.0 by Paul Graham of Yahoo Stores and
Lisp fame that's worth a read even if you don't think there's anything new in Web 2.0 other than the name.He says Originally, yes, Web 2.0was meaningless. Now it seems to have acquired a meaning. And yet those who dislike the term are probably right, because if it means what I think it does, we don't need it.

It keeps clicking for me, and the good news is it seems to be clicking with some other folks as well. So I think this should raise a question. This is a simple question, though it's 800+ words long: With whom does this need to click for it to matter? Does it need to click with the ALA? The directors of the ACRL libraries? If I'm wrong, and this is yet just one more "end of the libraries" time, then our profession live through it just fine. If you agree with me, who should we being trying to convince we're right? Let me explain a little what I'm talking about here.

Like Karen, Gandel's "Wrong Train?" gave me a couple new clicks:

1. This is another "end of the libraries" time when some people are very worried.

2. We are nodes. We are a small piece of a huge information industry that we used to have a monopoly on. -- Read More