One of my colleagues over at the Staff Information Hub posted interestingly about setting up an area or room in one of the libraries dedicated to promoting e-resources and teaching the public how to use them. I remember the days of the old Periodicals Room, a ponderous and serious place full of stacks of newspapers and magazines securely held behind a counter. Staff asked people for their drivers licenses or library cards as collateral when surrendering to them a copy of Barron's or the Wall Street Journal. Other staff policed the public computers with clipboard in hand, making sure people did not abuse their time limits. It was a different world back then!
These days all the periodicals are loose on the shelf, and sometimes issues cannot be found. Sometimes the publisher is less than diligent in getting our copy to us. Or it may be misplaced or even, (heaven forbid) taken from the library. These things happen. With back issues available online and the advent of downloadable materials of all sorts, a location in the library for teaching about their use is just common sense. Lots of people are comfortable with the internet but not so comfortable navigating to specific resources, or checking out a Netbook. With the plethora of devices out there, downloading books can be daunting too. At least the delivery side of the process, (The Greater Phoenix Digital Library) can be made easier to do with a little encouragement.
In that spirit, I located a stock photo and doctored it up a bit in Photoshop. Imagine this on the wall of an e-Reading Room in your local library. Instead of sending the message of the old days, "we don't trust you with our stuff" it welcomes people in to take a look and get comfortable.
No comments:
Post a Comment