Michael Stephens is very active in promoting technology in the librarian field, and has become a prominent name in the Library 2.0 world. He publishes the blog “Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology“, but he just published his annual top tech trends for librarians for 2007.
What ever your opinion is about new technologies, this makes for a good read about the changing trends in technology that all librarians should be aware of. Its a bit of a long post, but it is a good summary of the current philosophies in the Library 2.0 concept.
One of the things that was a shock to me was that McMaster University Library “got out of the cataloging business” and has shifted their catalogers to other departments. It was also interesting to see the new positions being created at the McMaster University Library (see descriptions here). My role as the “Emerging Technology Librarian” at Buffalo State College is similar to the “Digital Strategies Librarian” position they are looking for. I am involved in various technology initiatives on my campus that include:
- Maintaining our library blog which I started last year. Now its our main resource for news and events information at our library. My next step is to figure out ways to get more comments from the campus community.
- Maintain the Instant Messaging Reference, which I currently do on my own, just to see if students would use it. This was not really advertised and it was quietly added to the list of Reference Help last fall. I currently get 10~20 questions a month, though traffic has been increasing as more people find out about it.
- Participate in a new project to develop a Buffalo State College presence in the virtual world of Second Life. I became involved because I was already looking at Second Life to see how our library can participate as well.
In the ever evolving world of technology, its good to have someone that maintains an awareness of current trends in technology, and keep everyone else in your organization aware of trends that affect the future of your library.
