Week 1 Reading Notes

OCLC report: Information Format Trends

• In regards to not having full access to book content on Amazon’s website—it’s not the same experience as if we were to shop for a book in a Barnes and Noble store. However, by using Amazon or any other online seller, we’re sacrificing full content of any particular object for access to a larger number of books that might not be available in a physical bookstore.
• Smartphones not only affect how people search for information, but how they’ve come to expect to get any information a) anywhere and b) anytime. Searching and finding information can take longer than desired at the library—how can we remedy this and make our information retrieval faster? Or is this even a goal we want to achieve?
• Many libraries are now offering “ask-a” services in a variety of contexts (reference librarian in-person, via e-mail, through instant messaging, or by text), which then reaches a variety of patrons in a variety of situations.
• Blogs are not the first way the ordinary person has been able to self-publish. Zines (self-published and self-created personal mini-magazines) were around long before blogs. It’s largely because of the Internet’s ability to reach such a large percentage of the population that blogs have become more mainstream, whereas blogs remain as a sort of underground form of communication.
• Is it that teens believe reading print newspapers is “nerdy” because they are in print or because they are newspapers? What would they say about reading print magazines?

Information Literacy and Information Technology Literacy (Clifford Lynch)

• A 14-year-old paper about technology would normally be outdated, but because the claim is to focus on information technology literacy in a broader sense, educating about understanding technology as a whole rather than focusing on specific technological devices or systems, this article stands the test of time.
• One way high schools might be able to provide information technology literacy to their students is to offer a science class where students get to take apart various technological and/or mechanical devices and begin to learn exactly how they work. However, the American education system is currently in a crunch—not only because of a decreasing amount of government funds, but also because of the increasing focus on standardized test scores.

Lied Library @ Four Years (Vaughan, J)

• In the OCLC report, it touched on how more people may use their phones and e-mail to send and receive information rather than USPS and inter-library loans because the phone and web fees are hidden. Rather than charging UNLV students for printing, a flat fee could be added to the cost of attending the university (which, I believe, is what Pitt does for the first 900 pages/semester a student prints).
• While UNLV has been lucky enough to have funds that cover software and software support, the growing trend of open source software may decrease this cost as we move into the future.