ARCHIVAL MATERIAL
This 1997 report focuses on how libraries are coping with the use of new technologies to maintain their role as society's primary information providers, what challenges they are facing, and who is doing a good job.
Preface: Of libraries and communities
By Jorge Reina Schement, associate dean for graduate studies and research/professional
development and professor of communications, Pennsylvania State University.
Introduction
An
overview of technology and libraries
New telecommunications technologies are changing the way libraries provide information
to the public and interact with their communities. These changes, while offering
an incredible potential for library/community development, will require an expansion
of resources to be fully realized.
The vision: opportunities and synergies
Technology is giving libraries new ways to bring focus and order to today's overwhelming supply of information. It also is giving them powerful tools to augment their traditional role as community-building institutions.What's going on
Government agencies, library organizations, and private corporations are supporting efforts to enhance the digital capabilities of libraries and help them serve patrons and communities. And librarians are assuming an important role in policy debates on such issues as universal service, censorship, and the structure of the telecommunications system.What's needed
Fewer than half of all public libraries are connected to the Internet, and many offer access only for library staff, not patrons. Diverse partners-ranging from government agencies and schools to businesses and nonprofit groups-must join the effort to bridge this gap. At the same time, librarians must be better trained to develop vital information-age skills and teach them to others.
Profiles
in connectivity
Eight profiles demonstrate how some libraries are taking advantage of technology
to forge new community relationships, reach new library users, and enhance the
role of the library as a community information resource center.
Additional
resources
A list of more than 100 useful sources on the role of libraries in the Information
Age and samples how libraries are offering public access to new technologies.
Local Places, Global Connections was a collaboration of the Benton Foundation and Libraries for the Future, who share a belief in libraries as vital community institutions in the digital age. The What's Going On series was a part of the Benton Foundation's Communications Policy and Practice project. The series was made possible with funding by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation. Local Places, Global Connections and other educational tools LFF provides to its National Library Advocates Network are made possible with funding by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Universalist Unitarian Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, and the Council on Library Resources.
(c) Benton Foundation, 1997