Career Space E-zine

Currently I am part of a task group that is working on a discussion paper about the future of the elibrary at UBC. Having recently returned from a trip to Paris I have just dived back into the fray and set to work. It’s very interesting (and a little odd)to write a paper as a group. As a student I wrote on my papers independently and as a present writer I will at times work with an editor to develop a piece. I’ve already started working through what the other members of the group have been working on and I’m pulling together material for the section I am assigned to. One thing that hasn’t been tackled yet is a preamble as to how the current trends in social software affect the modern library patrons expectations towards the library experience. There hasn’t been much in terms of academic research done on this but I’ve found a lot of good observations by experts in the field (John Blyberg being one of them), and I’ve also found other blogs such as Library Crunch and Web 2.0 Explorer that have some interesting leads.

In a conversation I had with Chris Hives we talked about the first step for research is to google keywords to get a “lay of the land” and to very quickly see “who’s who” in the area of interest. This is much different than what we have experienced in the past where it was a trip to a traditional library to find a section of books in your area of interest and browse. It was very absorbing and a much slower process. Surfing has replaced browsing. With the Google search engine which is the middle man between the browser and the database we can very quickly piggy-back on the connections other users have made and start to develop out own to add thereby contributing to the existing connections. From this quick survey the patron will have enough information to start exploring online publications and go on from there picking up on other connections.

There are a lot of interesting questions to consider. This paper will be the first word on the topic but not the last one. It will initiate conversations and engage both faculty, staff and students on the future of the library. When it goes past being a repository what will the library become? Will it become more intimately involved in instruction? What will the space be used for? A collaborative social space? The possibilities are intriguing.

This is a fairly interesting topic and I’m considering whipping up a short presentation about this for Vancouver Barcamp which is an adhoc unconference being held at Bryght. Beyond cyberspace a personal networking session is a good place to bounce ideas off of other people. Sometimes a good reference or suggestion can open up to other ideas and possibilities.