Posts in: January, 2017

Why aren’t you asking “Why?”

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At home, I get asked “Why?” all the time. I have three young children and their capacity for questioning is nearly endless. Some recent examples: “Why can’t we have a small pig as a pet?”; “Why do we say better instead of gooder?”; and the classic, “Why do I have to take a nap?” As parents, we do our best to answer these questions because we want to encourage curiosity and an understanding of how the world works.

It struck me recently, though, that as adults at work, we sometimes lose this natural curiosity…or it is discouraged to the point where we just quit asking.

And that’s a bad thing.

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Share your library space pictures!

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Since last October, libraries have been sharing pictures of their spaces with us for us to pass along on Twitter and Facebook. We’ve gotten some great pictures—many thanks to everyone who has been contributing. We’ve seen folks in the community sharing and liking these so we wanted to put them in one place for you to see.

Beautiful pictures of libraries! Do you have a #LibrarySpaces photo to share? Click To Tweet

If you’d like to add your picture to our collection and maybe see it featured in the future, send a photo (minimum size 1920 x 1080; JPG, please) to photos@oclc.org. Please also include a brief caption with the name of the library, city and country. By submitting photos this way, you confirm that you own the image rights and agree to OCLC’s use of them in digital and print marketing and communications.

So many great library spaces, so many great pictures. Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing yours!

 

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Koo Chen-Fu Memorial Library at NTU College of Social Sciences in Taipei, Taiwan

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The long tail of library discovery

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One of our first OCLC symposium speakers was Chris Anderson, the technology writer and former editor of Wired. He spoke for us at ALA Annual back in 2005 on the subject of his famous Wired article and soon-to-be published best-seller, The Long Tail. Like many others in our profession, I found the subject to be both interesting and appropriate to libraries, as did others whom we quoted in a NextSpace article at the time.

Libraries have been collecting, preserving and promoting “long tail materials” for centuries, of course. That’s the long tail of content. But we’ve also found that, when it comes to WorldCat, there’s a long tail for discovery.

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Global Council at a crossroads

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I recently attended the OCLC Asia Pacific Regional Council Meeting in Hong Kong where the theme was “Libraries at the Crossroads.” It was a great topic, one that is relevant to us all. As librarians, we continuously face crossroads—changing patron preferences, evolving institutions, new technologies. We had excellent discussions about how we can best move forward, together. It’s the same theme we’ll explore at the upcoming Europe, Middle East and Africa Regional Council Meeting in Germany in February. I’m greatly looking forward to continuing the discussion.

This “crossroads” analogy also has framed recent Global Council discussions and decisions. At our meeting this past November, Delegates agreed to sharpen our focus on member activities, such as OCLC regional meetings and product, user and working groups that advance the interests of our member institutions.

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