As I type, dear readers, it’s a COLD Thursday morning..still dark outside with temperatures hovering around 0.’ Jaap and Erik from Deflt Public Library are already up as well, getting ready for their next adventure: tours of libraries to the northwest and meetings with more innovative librarians.
Yesterday was wonderful because I had them with me, on campus at Dominican University, as guests of the Graduate School of Library & Information Science.
We had lunch in the Dining Hall with Professors Kate Marek and Karen Brown. Then, the fellows joined us at our faculty meeting to discuss their projects at DOK. Interviews with LIS student Leah White and GSLIS Asst. Professor Kate Williams followed. Kate asked them to stay on campus and make a short presentation to her research methods class. I sat in the back and snapped this photo of their talk.
Finally, we joined Jenny for dinner and had some great conversation. My favorite part was discussing the future of libraries with Erik. We talked about the mission of libraries, the core values of librarians and their innovations with using digital tools to preserve, share and create the human record.
Erik summed it so well:
Libraries need to:
Keep Stories
Tell Stories
Make Stories
Indeed. Could this be one way to share the mission of the 21st Century library? I think so.