What's keeping you from inventing the future? To help librarians remain among the best of innovators, NextSpace explores five barriers to innovation and how to overcome them. |
Libraries are under mounting pressure to show their effectiveness and quantify their value. How can we demonstrate value by looking to the future? |
From newspapers to popular magazines to scholarly journals to e-books to print-on-demand “vending” machines, publishing is more complicated than it once was. What do the changing roles of consumers and creators mean for libraries? |
Librarians and catalogers are right in the middle of a revolution in how we think about representing and describing information. |
NextSpace Issue No. 14
The Ripple Effect: Widening the library's circle of influence
Maximizing impact with constituencies who will—if engaged properly—champion library funding is key to the survival of libraries. |
NextSpace Issue No. 13
The Ripple Effect: Extending the library's reach
Today’s librarians are engaging information seekers wherever they are—at the beach, in the street, on the stage, on the Web—to extend their impact and set in motion growing waves of relevance and usage |
Working together to solve common problems and share resources is nothing new to libraries. But now, almost a decade into the 21st century, we can see that increasing technological and social changes impact how all individuals and groups cooperate. Coming from a long tradition of sharing, libraries may be better-suited than other industries to benefit from increased cooperative opportunities. |
We often think of innovation in terms of sweeping changes—entirely new technologies that arise and, over time, saturate society and alter our way of life. Innovation isn’t something ordinary people do ... or is it? Our conversations with several libraries suggest that you need to make innovation personal—for yourself, your users and your organization. |
In Life 2.0, people move into a shared network space that drives work, research, education, entertainment, social activities—essentially everything they do. They use digital tools—PDA, MP3, laptop, cell phone, camera, PC—to tell their stories and interact with the world. They are always online, connected to one another and to the Web. |
One of the fastest growing trends today is combining data and functionality from several sources to create new services. They're called mash ups. Think Google Maps. Yahoo Pipes. Libraries are doing Web mash ups as well: Meebo Instant Messaging. Library Lookup. And, in a way, libraries have been doing mash ups for years. Think story hour, open-shelf access, cafes. |
Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant discovered six breakthrough practices that largely determine the impact a nonprofit organization can deliver. Can libraries apply these practices both individually and collectively to make a difference in the digital age? |
NextSpace asked nine experts for their thoughts about our increasingly online lives. The challenge is how to apply social networking in a digital age to enhance and extend the public service mission of libraries, museums and archives. |
The battle for search supremacy is hardly over. In fact, search is in its early days and poised at the cusp of several major leaps forward. What impact will they have on libraries? And how can libraries benefit? |
As libraries battle popular search engines and Internet research services for users, the new book The Ultimate Question by Fred Reichheld says that one simple question determines an organization’s future: Would you recommend us to a friend? Learn more about this one-question survey and the latest efforts in library customer service and assessment. |
The architecture of the Web is transforming the way systems are built and services delivered. Application development can now mean mixing data and functionality from several Web sites with your service to provide a unique and powerful user experience. What library services will move to the new network platform? |
Frederick G. Kilgour, a librarian and educator who created an international computer library network and database that changed the way people use libraries, died on July 31, 2006. He was 92 years old and had lived since 1990 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. |
Remember when it was cool to surf the Web? Logon, type a few words, view a few pages, logoff. Hold on to your search box, because the Web is on the cusp of another wave of jarring change. |
Three legacy brands—McDonald’s, Discovery Channel and IBM—have all successfully repositioned their brands in recent years to maintain their ability to influence consumer behavior. Why should libraries care about rebranding themselves—and what can they learn from these examples? |
A revolutionary new economic theory says that the digital future is one of abundance—when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand disappear and everything becomes available to everyone. How will libraries fit in?
|
As Gamers and Boomers collide in one of the biggest culture clashes in history, society is being reshaped. What will the impact be on libraries? And how can libraries attract Gamers and serve both generations? |
In the quest to serve the information consumer, libraries face competition with the sophisticated profiling and customization technologies of search engines, e-tailers and Internet service providers. How can they make the search experience at the digital library as exciting and as personal as the experience at Web bookstores and search engines? |
Librarians' Toolbox:
