Week 6, Thing 15

I love what Michael Stephens has to say about Library 2.0 controlling technolust and making good, yet fast decisions! I think this is so important for libraries, yet often this goes against the librarian way of doing things. Which made sense in the past, when resources cost an arm and a leg and had to last for years and years. Deciding which biography series to buy really tied you to a certain title for years on end, since you had to keep the original set and then commit to buying a new edition every other year or so in order to keep current and serve the customer. Now, the stakes are a little lower with all the free information out there on the internet. I think that many librarians are unwilling to give up their comfortable tools, even if it means that their customers don't have access to the most up to date tools. For instance, databases: do we really need them? If no one is using them, why don't we just get rid of them? We have so many different databases, and the stats show they are rarely used. Why bother when you can find so much authoritative information on the web? Medline is free, why do we subscribe to so many medical databases? Does the average public library user need professional medical journal information? No, they can find all they need on Medline Plus. Why are we going to all this effort and spending more money to market our databases? Why don't we make a good, fast decision to do away with about half of our databases?
Or what about the uproar caused by the public library who did away with the Dewey system in favor of a bookstore model? They are just responding to their customer's desires. I drove past the Barnes & Noble at Towson Circle the other night at about 7:30PM, and the place was hopping! The cafe tables were full. I wonder how full the library was at the same time?