On Sep 24, 2009, at 10:28 AM, James Weinheimer wrote:
> I still say that we need to find reasons to "make ourselves relevant
> in the
> new environment" (a phrase that I have heard repeated throughout the
> years
> and apparently coming true in California). I think we can, but we
> must think
> outside the box.
IMHO, the way to make ourselves more relevant is to move beyond the
access to information and towards the facilitation of services against
information. Finding information is relatively easy for people to
accomplish. People are drowning in it. Figuring out ways to use it is
more challenging. Examples include compare & contrast, graph,
summarize, annotate, etc. More are here:
http://pln.palinet.org/wiki/index.php/Future_catalogs:_food_for_thought
When people acquire information from us (or others) we need to figure
out ways to make it easier for them to use it for what ever purpose
they desire. Learning. Teaching. Scholarship. Verification. Decision-
making. Writing. Marketing. Estimating. Predicting. Etc.
--
Eric Lease Morgan
University of Notre Dame
Received on Thu Sep 24 2009 - 10:47:44 EDT