The Future of public libraries: what do an Apple computer store and a library have in common?A review of the Future of public libraries conference held in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of 18-19 May 2006. This addressed technology and communication trends, their impact on public library buildings, library use patterns and physical and electronic collection issues ********** The Future of public libraries conference at the New York Public Library New York Public Library, free library supported by private endowments and gifts and by the city and state of New York. It is the one of largest libraries in the world. on 18 and 19 May 2006 was sponsored by the New York Public Library and the Stavros Niarchos For the socialite, see . Stavros Spyros Niarchos (3 July 1909 – 16 April 1996) was a millionaire Greek shipping tycoon, sometimes known as "The Golden Greek. Foundation. Around 80 people from around the world attended this invitation only event. Participants included library directors, library staff and trustees, architects, urban planners List of urban planners chronological by initial year of plan.
The most critical issues facing public libraries today and in the future were discussed * trends in technology and communications and their implications for public libraries * how these trends impact the public library building of the future * patterns of library use now and in the future * collections--physical and electronic The first speaker was Peter Bohlin, a principal of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Architects. They have created and designed the Apple stores around the world that are opening at a rate of one every nine days. He drew parallels between these stores and libraries, emphasizing the need for transparency--making the inside visible outside, and the outside visible inside. He talked about making places that are magic to be in, places where people love to be. Coincidentally the newest Apple store opened on 5th Avenue that evening. It is open 24/7 and it does look magical, with its glass walls soaring up above street level, floating over the underground store with the suspended Apple hanging in the space. See more pictures at www.apple.com/retail/ fifth avenue/gallery/. Bohlin showed us the way they prototype the stores, building them in warehouses and trying them out before fitting out the actual sites. He talked about how they make learning fun and irresistible, with stores holding classes on different topics such as how to use your iPod; or where people can come with their ideas and get help to enhance their Mac projects, with teams of 'Creatives' teaching one on one how to retouch photos, compose music and make movies. It is a whole different take on retail stores, especially as Apple could simply sell its products online if it chose. Instead, it is creating these beautiful new stores in prime real estate as physical places for people to come, to interact, and enable them to learn. Lise Bissonnette Lise Bissonnette (born December 13, 1945) is a Canadian writer and journalist. Born in Rouyn, Quebec, from 1965 to 1970, Bissonnette studied education science at the Université de Montréal. is the library director of the Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec in downtown Montreal. Its collection is part of the Bibliotheque Nationale du Quebec (BNQ BNQ Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec BNQ Bureau de Normalisation du Quebec (Canada) BNQ Baganga, Philippines (Airport Code) ), Quebec's national library www.banq.qc.ca/portal/dt/accueil.jsp. Bissonnette talked about this new 33,000 sq metre library--with its six levels--as a cultural temptation, a poetic venue, and an antidote to chaos. The daytime light from within provides an environment of elegance and peace. The library was opened in April 2005. Its collections are housed in two chambres de bois (wooden rooms), a reference to Anne Hebert's novel Les Chambres de bois. The inspiration for the building came from poetry. Charles Brown Charles Brown is the name of: In politics:
Area, 52,586 sq mi (136,198 sq km). Pop. described the specialist youth library, Imaginon www.imaginon.org/. This library and children's theatre opened in September 2005 and is a collaboration between the Charlotte Mecklenburg library and the Children's Theatre of Charlotte. It is a place for creativity, learning, performing and relaxing and is designed for 0-18 year olds. Included are a teenage library called The Loft with a coffee shop feel, booths where children can play recreational games, and a studio with a blue screen for creating animation and films. It is an exuberant and exciting space. The conference's libraries and technology stream featured Rolf Hapel, the director of the Arhus Public Library Denmark and winner of the Gates award in 2004 www.aakb.dk. The main message for library websites is that they should be interactive and participatory. Arhus library, in collaboration with other Danish libraries, has created much content, especially of Danish literature Danish literature, the literature of Denmark. Early Writings The earliest literature of Denmark is preserved in the runic carvings on nearly 275 stone monuments erected to the Vikings c.850–1050. and music. It has developed an Amazon personalised reading suggestion list using the library management system, and is incorporating Web 2.0 with borrowers writing reviews that are published on the website. Hapel was the keynote speaker at the Best of the Best forum, a pre conference CLiCK event in Perth Western Australia Western Australia, state (1991 pop. 1,409,965), 975,920 sq mi (2,527,633 sq km), Australia, comprising the entire western part of the continent. It is bounded on the N, W, and S by the Indian Ocean. Perth is the capital. on 19 September 2006. Phoenix library director, Toni Garvey, described how the library is following a retail design approach with the website. It chose software that is used by online retail stores, such as Home Depot The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Headquartered in Vinings, just outside Atlanta in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, Home Depot employs more than 355,000 people and operates 2,164 big-box , to offer full web service functionality and to expose the catalogue to exploit the depth of their collections. Retail friendly headings (Bisac codes) are used instead of Library of Congress subject headings The Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) comprise a thesaurus (in the information technology sense) of subject headings, maintained by the United States Library of Congress, for use in bibliographic records. , and the cataloguers are building translation tables from DDC See VESA DDC. to these codes. The aim is to control its electronic presence and to offer full web service functionality. Its new website will be launched very soon www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org/. Once this is available, the library will be implementing a fully integrated ecommerce platform where people can pay fees and for services online, including booking and paying for meeting rooms as well as overdue fees and other library related charges. Maija Berndtson, who was recently in Melbourne for the Collections Summit, described the Library 10 project in Helsinki www.lib.hel.fi. This has amalgamated a·mal·ga·mate v. a·mal·ga·mat·ed, a·mal·ga·mat·ing, a·mal·ga·mates v.tr. 1. To combine into a unified or integrated whole; unite. See Synonyms at mix. 2. an internet library and a music library to create a new kind of facility where people can create their own music or videos, borrow a musical instrument, edit their photos or even read or borrow a book. Henk Das is the general manager of NDB/Biblion, a Dutch company that focuses primarily on library and educational markets www.nbdbiblion.nl. Products include library ready books and specialized multimedia products. It also publishes bibliographic descriptions, reviews and metadata. Since 2004, all 2.7 million library books ordered annually from NBD/Biblion have included a free RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification) A data collection technology that uses electronic tags for storing data. The tag, also known as an "electronic label," "transponder" or "code plate," is made up of an RFID chip attached to an antenna. label. It was the first retailer to use this technology in The Netherlands, and has significantly accelerated the takeup of RFID in Dutch libraries. Inga Lunden from the Stockholm Public Library Stockholm Public Library (Swedish: Stockholms stadsbibliotek) is located in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. Construction began in 1924, and the library was completed in 1928. www.ssb.stockholm.se suggested that the users of public libraries today fall into three groups. Web customers want a quick visit to pick up the items they have already ordered online. Lifelong learners, who can spend 5/6 hours in the library, bring their own laptops and materials and use the library as a working space. Browsers, whose numbers are declining, come to the library as adventurers to see what they can find. Lunden wants libraries to be open, bold and viable places. They should be places where people feel at home, are surprised with what they find, and proud of what they have. The final conference speaker was Kevin Ryan Kevin Ryan may refer to:
tr.v. co·found·ed, co·found·ing, co·founds To establish or found in concert with another or others. co·found of ShopWiki.com. He is one of the most accomplished and well known internet entrepreneurs in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. , and helped build DoubleClick from a startup of 20 people to a very profitable global leader with 1500 employees. Last year DoubleClick was sold for $1.1 billion. Ryan told delegates that he used to visit a library in upstate New York Upstate New York is the region of New York State north of the core of the New York metropolitan area. It has a population of 7,121,911 out of New York State's total 18,976,457. Were it an independent state, it would be ranked 13th by population. , where he has a house, on the weekends with his children. He observed a library with many books that no one was reading and few computers that had queues of people waiting to use them. He asked the library why it did not get more computers but was told that it could not afford them. He suggested that spending some of the $2.5 million per annum Per annum Yearly. book vote on more technology might be the way to go. Because the library is not being used, the weekend hours are being cut, and it is no longer open when he wants to visit it. Ryan indicated that electronic books are about to have an impact, and that the vehicle will be the video iPod A common name for the first iPod that supported video, introduced in late 2005. Also called the 5th Generation iPod (5G iPod). Apple refers to Video iPods as simply "iPod." See iPod. . These are now available with a half screen but in 12-18 months will be available with a full screen and will be able to pick up television. A medical student he knows has loaded an encyclopedia onto his iPod, so he can learn his medical terms while he listens to music waiting for his coffee at Starbucks. Within ten years 90-100 per cent of all the information people want will be available online. Much of this information will be free, supported by advertisers. Ryan has investigated offering free music downloads and this is almost supportable now. Books will become an upscale product. He talked about libraries making choices and believes that libraries are doing their users a disservice by clinging to the role of book provider. They need to become information providers, getting information to consumers in the way that they want. He wondered why libraries are putting so much effort into creating individual websites. He challenged delegates to think about the use of capital, and whether the real estate public libraries have is in the right place. His model would be to create many more, smaller, locations--a shop corner with 30 pcs and a few books. The Future of public libraries conference echoed many of the themes of the State Library of Victoria's Library of the 21st century symposium www.slv.vic.gov.au/programs/events/2006/symposium/index.html and the Public libraries 2020: content and access summit, also sponsored by the State Library of Victoria, held in February and March 2006 in Melbourne. The strong message coming through is that public libraries need to be very sure that they know what their role is, and that they need to be providing information in the media that people want--to be enablers of learning, creativity and community. Received September 2006 Christine Mackenzie Library Manager Yarra Plenty Regional Library Victoria Christine Mackenzie is the library manager of the Yarra Plenty Regional Library in Melbourne and was an international invitee An individual who enters another's premises as a result of an express or implied invitation of the owner or occupant for their mutual gain or benefit. For example, a customer in a restaurant or a depositor entering a bank to cash a check are both invitees. to the Future of public libraries conference held in New York 18-19 May 2006. Address: Bag 65 Bundoora Vic 3083 Tel(03)94087888 fax(03)94088231 cmackenzie@yprl.vic.gov.au |
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