The Library of Tomorrow Philosophy

Our philosophy is simple: we think libraries matter. With technology drastically affecting all aspects of our lives — how we work, learn, play, and think — libraries need to refocus their services and not simply duplicate what once worked. Fundamentally, our mission is the same: to collect, curate, disseminate, preserve, and provide access to information. And, for many of us, to teach. But with today’s information-based society, libraries need to be doing more: we need to provide a broader suite of knowledge services. We need to create new ways to connect our users with the information they need. We need to be thinking about knowledge creation. How can we facilitate students, patrons, co-workers as they create new media, new information, new knowledge? Where does the library belong in the age of YouTube? How can we become more integrated into the learning process so students are learning good research skills — transferable skills they can take with them after they graduate and become professionals? What skills and services should we be offering?

In this online forum, we hope to raise issues that affect libraries and our user communities, ask difficult questions, and provide a forum for open and honest discussion. We hope to challenge, inspire, and learn. Much of our discussions will focus on the area where libraries, information, people, and technology intersect:

• educational and instructional technology
• digital repositories, digital curation and preservation
• open access, new forms of publishing
• information literacy, new media literacy, 21st century literacy
• changes in pedagogy; active learning, problem-based learning, digital game-based learning
• partnering and collaborating with colleagues outside of the library — faculty, technologists, researchers, publishers, archivists, museum curators
• digital audio, video, text, images; streaming video
• open source applications and systems
• metadata
• next generation library systems
• knowledge management services
• new and emerging tools, systems, applications — work-related tools, and things we just think are interesting…

About Us

The Library of Tomorrow site was created in January 2009 with the goal of creating a forum for discussing the issues, trends, and technologies that are of interest to the library/information science community and related fields such as educational/instructional technology, IT, publishing, museums, and archives. 

Abby Clobridge and Eric Hinsdale, founders of Flurry Consulting, are responsible for the Library of Tomorrow site. More information about Flurry Consulting and our services is available here. 

About the Site

The web site is hosted by Flurry Consulting through 1&1. The site uses WordPress version 2.7, with the Unstandard Theme by Derek Punsalan. 

Image Credits

Eric Hinsdale, Abby Clobridge, istockphotos.com, Stock Exchange Photos