Working Where They Want to Reduce Hardcovers
I WORK ACROSS THE HALL from a small library set on significantly reducing the footprint of books on its shelves. I hope that means a significant increase in the number of electronic titles.
And why not? Throughout my life, a large swath of what I need to know has been digitized. The key analogue elements are truly artefacts of my ancestral heritage and it's up to me to bring that content into the digital era. As I push my content from working notes on my laptop to lecture notes for download, I can see students connecting to the core material without even coming into the classroom. Plus, I can see prospective students an ocean away dipping into materials that can help disparate cultures connect through learning.
I'm watching the content shared by the Digital Public Library of America [DPLA] while hoping its growth can offer a case study in how Ireland might create the infrastructure. I think we could start with prodding Irish academics to digitizing their data and then share their efforts across the Republic in collaborative efforts that promote new knowledge and scholarship. Such an effort would foster a community spirit that would trickle over into the public library system.
And if the little library across the hall guts one-third of its shelf space this summer, I think we'll see such a digital library as part of our Limerick Institute of Technology course catalogues before the end of the decade.
Michael Posner -- "Creating the public library of the future" in the Globe and Mail, March 2, 2012.
Posted by Bernie Goldbach at 08:35:04 AM
in Books
