Karl Fisch blogs:
http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2008/09/no-more-librarians.html
Dan Maas, my district’s CIO, has a new post titled Sunset for the Librarian:
So what’s in a name? Well, everything. A name conjures an image, a shared understanding and it is from these understandings that we begin to do the work at hand. The term library is rooted in the latin word libriwhich means paper or books. The very terms library and librarian are obstacles to the future of this critical school service because the business is no longer based in the media of paper and the book. In fact, I don’t even like the term media center because the emphasis is still on the containers of information…
He goes on to suggest some possible new names for the library and the librarian (Scholar Center and Scholar in Residence). I’m not sure he’s quite nailed the right name yet, but I do think it’s an interesting topic to think about. He goes on to ask:
So, if we were going to write a new job description for the Scholar in Residence at your school, what items would you include?
If you have some thoughts, head on over to his blog and leave a comment.
We write a paper on the “L Word” and its usefulness every semester in LIS701. Usually, the concensus is that the word library transcends just books. What do you think? Please head over and comment… I think something is lost if the school library becomes the Scholar Center.