Re: If Academic Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone Come?

So, what will come next? Smartphones? 

In my library system we have begun to provide not only desktop computers but also circulating laptops. Students who check them out have and feel comfortable using laptops, but don't want to drag them around campus all day. They are extremely popular with students now, but it would not surprise me if new multipurpose handheld devices that the students bring around with them displace them in the near future. The circulation staff would certainly appreciate that change, as well as the budget officers :) 

Making an alternate online catalog display that works better with cell-phones was recently identified as a high priority development in our system. A version is now in test thanks to the clever folks at FCLA. As a dinosaur lacking such equipment, I have not been able to check it out yet but I hear good things about it. As I understand some of the other features are compromised to allow for better display on the super-small screens of more essential information. 

Thanks and have a great day,
Jimmie

Jimmie Lundgren 
Associate Chair & Contributed Cataloging Unit Head 
Cataloging & Metadata Dept. 
Smathers Library 
PO Box 117004 
University of Florida 
Gainesville, FL 32611-7004 
352-273-2725 
352-392-7365 (fax) 
jimlund_at_ufl.edu 
  


-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries [mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Janet Hill
Sent: Friday, April 30, 2010 2:51 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] If Academic Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone Come?

Is this some kind of red herring?  Public access computers are merely (in a
way) furniture.  We have them now because they are needed now.  Just as we
had oodles of microfilm readers and reader printers at one point; just as we
had what amounted to copier farms; just as we used to have forests of card
catalog cabinets; just as we once had typewriters by the dozens.  As soon as
the need for them diminished and/or disappeared, we divested ourselves of
them with nary a whimper.  We'll do the same with public access computers
when the time comes. 


Janet Swan Hill, Professor
Associate Director for Technical Services
University of Colorado Libraries, CB184
Boulder, CO 80309
janet.hill_at_colorado.edu
     *****
Tradition is the handing-on of Fire, and not the worship of Ashes.
- Gustav Mahler


-----Original Message-----
From: Next generation catalogs for libraries
[mailto:NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Peter Schlumpf
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 11:36 PM
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] If Academic Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone
Come?

That "some point in the future" may be much closer than you think -- not
some far off distant abstract point in time.  I would give it a couple of
years and you will see a noticeable trend away from public access desktop
computers in libraries.  Just because your labs are packed now, doesn't mean
that they will remain that way.

And the ARE a huge resource sink!  In an academic library, public library or
any other context.  I know this from experience.  You have to buy the
things.  You have to set them up. You have to maintain them.  You have to
upgrade them.  You have to provide user support.  You have to keep them free
of viruses.  Eventually you have to retire and replace them.  You need
babysitters.  And yes, desktop computers in academic libraries are not
immune to vandalism either.  All this costs the institution money and time,
whether it is the IT department or the library doing it or both.  Resources
that could be put to use elsewhere.

I have to agree with what Tim Spalding suggests: That on a greater timescale
public access computers in libraries are probably a flash-in-the-pan
phenomenon.  Five years from now you may have computers designed for a
particular purpose, and they will be there, but nothing like we see today.

Peter Schlumpf
www.avantilibrarysystems.com


On 4/29/10, Walker, David <dwalker_at_calstate.edu> wrote:
>
> I don't think anyone is arguing that academic libraries will need to
> provide desktop computers indefinitely into the future, Peter.
>
> Rather, my comments -- and maybe those of others -- were aimed at your
> eagerness to get rid of them, and particularly your argument that they are
a
> "huge resource sink" for libraries, and are largely unnecessary even now
> because "almost everybody has the Internet."
>
> It doesn't bother me at all if, at some point in the future, academic
> libraries no longer provide the large number of computers we do now.  But
I
> just don't see their current use as being a bad thing either.  The fact
that
> our labs are packed surely suggests our students don't either.
>
>
> --Dave
>
> ==================
> David Walker
> Library Web Services Manager
> California State University
> http://xerxes.calstate.edu
>