Friday, November 18, 2011

Library Journal held its second Future of the Academic Library Symposium

...."surprised by the student who said "If you gave us a room with no Internet access and complete quiet, it would be the most popular room in the library" because it certainly challenged our perceptions of the 24/7 connected student. If anyone asks why we still need library buildings, the answer might be because it's the one space on campus where students can possibly escape the daily distractions that make it impossible for them to achieve serious study and learning"....

Anatomy of a Librarian

Some interesting statistics about librarians (assumed US based)

++ Click to Enlarge Image ++
Anatomy of a Librarian | Infographic |
Image Source: Online Masters

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

In the 21st-Century University, Let's Ban Books

........"Colleges and professors exist, in great measure, to help "liberate" and connect the knowledge and ideas in books. We should certainly pass on to our students the ability to do this. But in the future those liberated ideas—the ones in the books (the author's words), and the ones about the books (the reader's own notes, all readers' thoughts and commentaries)—should be available with a few keystrokes. So, as counterintuitive as it may sound, eliminating physical books from college campuses would be a positive step for our 21st-century students, and, I believe, for 21st-century scholarship as well. Academics, researchers, and particularly teachers need to move to the tools of the future. Artifacts belong in museums, not in our institutions of higher learning.
So will your campus be the first to go bookless? It's a risky step, certainly, but one that will attract forward-thinking students and professors, and be long remembered."

another from Jeanne; Graduate Student Space and Service Needs: A Recommendation for a Cross-campus Solution

from Jeanne: Daylighting Concepts for University Libraries and Their Influences on Users' Satisfaction

At Jeanne's request: Institutional Repositories, Open Access, and Scholarly Communication: A Study of Conflicting Paradigms