Two things:
1) I said _nothing_ about removing wifi from the library! Wifi is many
many times more economical to support than dozens of workstations that are
subject to the usual problems such as viruses or physical vandalism. And
let us not forget the headaches of obsolesence and upgrade cycles.
2) Wifi itself may be a transitory technology that in a few years the
library may not need to support. That is another middleman that will get
eliminated over time. What public access computers remain will connect
patrons to the library's local resources as they are appropriate. Libraries
will no longer be the gateway to the Internet. Almost everybody has it
now. Wake up! it's not 1998 anymore!
Peter
On 4/29/10, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu> wrote:
>
> So what if you take wifi out of the library too?
>
> I don't know why you'd _want_ to take public access worktations OR wifi out
> of the library exactly though.
>
>
> Peter Schlumpf wrote:
>
>> I don't agree. I think this push to have lots of computers in libraries
>> is
>> a passing phase. Sure, if one takes computer out of libraries now, the
>> numbers will indeed drop by half. But 5 years from now, I don't see that
>> happening. More and more, people have their own computers. And with wifi
>> and other wireless technology becoming ubiquitous and cheap or free, the
>> days of rows and rows of public access desktop computers in carrels is
>> numbered. The end of that couldn't come soon enough as far as I am
>> concerned. Public access computers are a huge resource sink in money and
>> staff time to support.
>>
>> Computers will always have a place in libraries, but in 5 or 10 years they
>> fade into the woodwork just like any other technology where they are
>> supposed to be. And then libraries can focus once again on their core
>> purpose.
>>
>> Peter Schlumpf
>> www.avantilibrarysystems.com
>>
>>
>> On 4/29/10, B.G. Sloan <bgsloan2_at_yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> From today's Chronicle "Wired Campus" blog:
>>>
>>> http://bit.ly/dcnWwW
>>>
>>> Article quotes an assistant university librarian at the University of
>>> California at Santa Barbara as saying: ""If you take the computers out of
>>> the commons, I think you'd see our numbers drop by half." By "numbers",
>>> he's
>>> talking about people visiting the physical library.
>>>
>>> Provocative, but I don't know if I agree...
>>>
>>> Bernie Sloan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
Received on Thu Apr 29 2010 - 18:01:10 EDT