 If there is one constant, it is that throughout these nearly two centuries, the modern library has continually transformed itself in an effort to respond to the needs of its contemporary user. Read More »
 Over the last few years, Web services and the service-oriented architecture (SOA) have become dominant themes in IT across many industries. Web-based computing, serviceorientation, and cloud computing increasingly displace the client/server approach favored by libraries in the past.
In library automation, one major trend involves evolving or rebuilding automation systems to adopt this new approach to software. Purveyors of both open source and proprietary library automation products increasingly emphasize the ways in which they embrace openness, support application programming interfaces (APIs), or implement Web services.
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 The concept of storytelling is older than human history itself. Before the invention of written language, wisdom, knowledge, and information were passed down orally, and often through what would today be considered stories. In one sense, storytelling has always utilized the latest available technology. Some have said that cave paintings and other ancient findings were sometimes used to tell stories. It may be hard to think about prehistoric drawings on a cave wall as a form of technology, but at the dawn of human civilization, they were just that. Read More »
 In the past fifteen years, the World Wide Web has become such a major part of the library world that most libraries now have some presence on the Web. This issue of Library Technology Reports explores the idea of the digital branch—a library website that is a vital, functional resource for patrons and enhances the library’s place within its community. The report outlines an efficient process for creating a digital branch, from the initial phases of gathering information and sketching out a design, to winning approval from management, hiring qualified IT staff, and maintaining and upgrading the site once it is built. Throughout the report, the author regularly uses his experience at his own library as an example of how the process can unfold and what pitfalls to avoid. Read More »
2008 may be remembered as the year in which gaming became just like any other service in libraries, with librarians implementing gaming initiatives that look very much like those we already offer for books, movies, music, and computers for as varied an audience as other library services are offered. As gaming in libraries has become more of a mainstream service, rather than a curious exception, anecdotal evidence has appeared on mailing lists, in newspaper articles, in conference presentations, and on blog posts, and general themes have begun to emerge. Overall, it’s clear that there are some common lessons libraries are learning from implementing gaming, and as with everything else in our profession, librarians want to share those lessons with their colleagues.
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 Some information technology managers and administrators are blocking access to social networks like Facebook or MySpace or to social tools like blogs because of fears that their staff will spend too much time updating their profiles and commenting and not enough time working. The purpose of this report is to give library managers the tools they need to encourage collaborative work both within and outside of their organizations and to make the case that social networking tools, when used efficiently by a library, are more of a boon to productivity than a drain on it. In this report, readers will also find hard data and concrete proposals that will save money and time in just about any collaborative effort library staff might decide to undertake. Even if a given library is not presently engaged in collaborative work, the activities that staff members do on a day-to-day basis can be improved by using collaborative platforms like Google Docs, a wiki, or an internal blog to facilitate communication.
--Robin Hastings Read More »
 Second Life is a virtual world owned by Linden Lab with over fifteen million users. It is currently one of the most popular 3-D social virtual worlds. The use of Second Life by libraries and universities has become a hotly debated topic in Library and Information Science circles. Read More »
"This issue examines the current state of library-technology funding, looking at common problems and concerns among librarians who make technological decisions for their facilities throughout the United States."
— Dan Freeman, ALA TechSource editor. Read More »
"A thorough process of evaluating an integrated library system (ILS) today would not be complete without also weighing the open source ILS products against their proprietary counterparts." — Chapter 4, "Open Source Integrated Library Systems""As libraries make decisions about what software to use when automating their operations, it is vital for decision-makers to have a solid grasp of the available options," notes Marshall Breeding in the final 2008 issue of Library Technology Reports, "Open Source Integrated Library Systems." Read More »
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