I thought that the position paper by Clifford Lynch presented a nice perspective on information literacy and information technology literacy. I especially liked the emphasis on how both forms of literacy are essential. His call for the understanding to have an appreciation for areas such as economics and history was also appreciated. I think too often those areas are overlooked when discussing information technology literacy. It doesn't exist in a vacuum, after all.
The OCLC report had some excellent vocabulary definitions. I'll be honest: I'm not the most technologically savvy guybrarian out there. I had no clue what a wiki was. Wikipedia, yes. Wiki, no. It was interesting to see the trends in content and format.
I think the article that I liked best, however, was the one by Jason Vaughan with the UNLV library. I was struck by how straightforward he was regarding the challenges encountered by his library and I thought he did a good job of thinking about the challenges and opportunities of the future at that library. I think that as librarians, we often don't consider future development and what some of those changes might mean in terms of technology, space limitations, and services.
My muddiest point: While I enjoyed the Vaughan article, I didn't really understand the systems discussion on page 2 of that article. For instance, when he discussed the DiMeMa/OCLC's CONTENTdm digital content management system for digital project development and access, he may as well have been speaking to me in ancient Greek. I'm hoping that through this course, I will gain a better understanding of systems and won't just stare at the reading blankly when different operating systems are discussed.
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point about Jason Vaughan being quite straightforward. I think when you switch from the role of librarian into library director (which i believe he is) you have to change your thought process because, its all about business efficiency. As director, it seems to me that you don't deal as much with patrons as you do budgets, committees, and employees. Therefore, I think that in order to "run your ship" you have to be less theoretical and more practical. (something I've noticed about a lot of library director's.)
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteYou make a great point about the future challenges and opportunities that involved in the natural growth and advancement of libraries. As compared with the past few generations of librarians, our roles will be very different. We MUST be flexible, open-minded, and most importantly, we must keep abreast of the continuously evolving advances in our field.
Sometimes I find myself thinking, "But I just want to be an old-fashioned librarian- like the ones in libraries when I was little!" Ha ha, not possible, so let's move on.
Like you, I also found the vocabulary list helpful. I have a copy of the text, Discovering Computers, which I've found to be a great reference.