Chain, Chain, Change

Change certainly is coming, but like the old adage says the more things change, the more things stay the same. Obviously more information is more readily accessable, but the same basic rules that apply today, will apply tomorrow. Public information will be retrievable and private data will be just as hard to come across as it is today. Thomas Frey says we will need to be more service based. I agree with that, but not because things will be technology will be tougher to understand than it is today. It may be more complex, but everyone's base knowledge will be increased too. I agree with the statement because libraries need to be more service based today. That is the reason we ask how do you find our services, not do you like the books we have available.

Also, this silly thing that the world will not stay literate. I will still be alive in 2050. Kids are still learning how to read and write. Half of the internet now is the written word. I can see paperless, but not a total verbal society.

Open Source Information

Looking through the the different web sites that were featured this week, it seems very easy to loose one's self all the information available. When asking questions on answerbag, most answers that I found did not seem to be very astute. Published books generally have more validity than random posts on random websites. Since the library has tons of published books, we are able to point patrons to a more researched answer to their questions.

However, OCLS could never have as much information within its walls as the internet. I liked what Northwestern was doing. My alma mater used a lot of online scholarly resources too. Also, I never heard of these websites until this course, so I image that most patrons haven't heard of these sites. If they do want information from places like answerbag, then when the come into the library to do research we can inform them about these sites.