Description
“The new tools provide powerful options for working with data, text, sound, and images. …. There is, predictably, an increasing departure in information handling from the simple pattern of read, think, then write. Computers are used for so much more than the traditional notion of “computing.’”
–Michael Buckland, Redesigning Library Services, 1992
Societal change affects every profession. Technology does as well. In the field of library and information science, scholars and practitioners have long theorized and pondered the state of libraries, user expectations and the future of library service. These selected foundational reading capture a series of “moments in time” during shifts in thinking, shifts in the way we can communicate, and shifts in what libraries can do and mean to communities. You may think it’s all about technology, but it’s not. Human conversations play out in many ways across many technologies, but they are still just that: conversations.
Things to Read
- Buckland, M. (1999) Redesigning Library Services: A Manifesto. (Read Preface, Introduction, The Electronic Library, & The Challenge)
- Casey, M. E., & Savastinuk, L. C. (2007). Library 2.0: A guide to participatory library service. Medford, N.J: Information Today. (Provided by the instructor as PDF)
- Mathews, B. (2012). Think Like A Start Up.
- Mathews, B. (2017) Cultivating Complexity. (Optional)
You will also be reading my 2016 and 2019 books throughout the semester. Happy to provide you with the PDF versions, please see below 🙂
- Stephens, M. (2016). The Heart of Librarianship: Attentive, Positive, and Purposeful Change
- Stephens, M. (2019). Wholehearted Librarianship: Finding Hope, Inspiration, and Balance