Digg: I didn't dig Digg. I get enough news from CNN, BBC, the Drudge Report, and all the local newspapers' web sites to do me. I'm sure the off beat news stories that are posted on Digg amuse some people, but I'm not one of them.
When I started working in libraries in the mid 1950s, there wasn't much competition, save for the lending libraries in some department stores. Fifty years later libraries are having to compete with the big chain book stores and the Internet. Now the Internet has changed and libraries are struggling to keep up.
A presenter* at the recent SOLINET conference in Atlanta worried because 1% of people seeking information on the Web start with a search engine rather a library home page. ( http://tametheweb.com/talks08/TransformedLibrarySOLINET.pdf) The growth of social networking, Wikipedia, Web 2.0, and Library 2.0 means more people are using other Internet sites to find information, rather than coming to libraries to check out books or using databases such as NC Live either in the library or online. Libraries in the present and future will have to use the technology we are learning about, both internally and externally, to reach current and potential customers.
My preference for my reward is the MP3 Player.
* - Michael Stephens
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing the Michael Stephens presentation. Very valuable.
Jeff
Okay, I had to go look at that presentaion because I would have thought more than 1% of people start with a search engine. It turns out only 1% of people start on a library home page. That makes sense to me, but I'm not sure where it falls on the scary meter--I'm a library worker and I don't start my searches from the library home page. I would be so motivated if I lived near a library like any of those in the presentation. Instead, I have heard every excuse the presenter listed. I feel that if we don't jump on board soon, the train will leave without us :(
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