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Librarians and Archivists in a fast-changing digital lanscape
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The impact of open access on librarians | by Fin Galligan, SwetsBlog

The impact of open access on librarians | by Fin Galligan, SwetsBlog | The Information Professional | Scoop.it
Exploring the potential impact of open access on the librarian and their role within the institution.

 

"...the future of open access for libraries will involve:

More advanced discovery services
Communication, training and networking with own institutional community
Repository building and curation
And to further summarise the above, they all point at developing a strong(er) service culture to look at end-users’ needs directly, rather than focusing on pure collection building. Not by coincidence, these themes are echoed in a paper presented in May 2012 by Lorcan Dempsey (Vice President and Chief Strategist at OCLC), which are nicely summarized on the OCLC’s website. It is easy to apply each of these points to the current and future OA landscape:

“Education, local government, and publishing are being reshaped by economic and networking pressures. Changes here will increasingly drive library changes and libraries need to understand those environments.
Libraries continue to shift from a collection-based view to a service-based view, with deeper engagement with the research, learning and information behaviors of their users.
Community engagement drives the need for new skills, more responsive organizational structures, and a readiness to reallocate resources to important areas.”

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Library system goes high-tech - GoErie.com

Library system goes high-tech - GoErie.com | The Information Professional | Scoop.it
Library system goes high-tech GoErie.com

"Denise Sticha, Berks County Public Libraries administrator, said the new system is especially helpful to patrons with motor-skill impairment, seniors who might not be able to use a mouse and to children."

She said the new Hewlett-Packard computers provide a state-of-the-art catalog system on a 21.5-inch computer screen.

"Some of the libraries have older equipment," Sticha said. "We wanted to update all of the equipment before it failed. We want our equipment to be user-friendly."

When a patron taps a search box of the catalog, an on-screen keyboard appears so the user can input the title of the book."

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