New Library: The People's NetworkThis worksheet has been designed to be used as the briefing text for a discussion about the implications of the New Library: The People's Network on the role of libraries in providing business information services.
The worksheet briefly summarises the New Library report's recommendations and ideas about how public libraries could develop services in this area. At the end of the worksheet is a series of questions which can be used as a starting point for a discussion.
New Library: The People's Network is a 'defining moment' (Chris Smith, Nov. 1997) for public libraries. It provides a vision of how public libraries can use and must use computer networking technology to develop both new and existing services. It argues that libraries must transform themselves and what they do, that they must be re-equipped and that staff must be re-skilled if they are to offer the services that the citizens of the Information Society will demand of them.
The Information Society is a term that is well used but seldom defined! It basically means a society which has an economy which is dependent on the creation, storage and accessibility of information on a national and global scale. Typically this information is transferred and accessed using the latest communication and computer technology.
The majority of businesses in the UK are small and medium-sized enterprises and do not have the resources to employ information specialists and maintain their own business library. Public libraries have always provided vital business information services for many companies of this type. As we move to an information society businesses will be more dependent on high quality information services than ever. Public libraries will therefore have to ensure that the services they reflect the computer-based knowledge-economy in which their users operate.
James Greaves, forty-seven, employs thirty people making castings for the pumping industry. Aware that his business could be run better, he goes to the library with a general need for information about how he might find more customers for his products and how he could improve his operations.
James finds the librarian really helpful, telling him about the free help he can get from Business Link, who will assess his business with him. He makes an appointment with an adviser for next week, but he wants to make a start now, on his own.
The BBC online self-assessment programme called Fit for Business is great - really good at showing him his strengths and weaknesses. He sees the needs to market his products more effectively and develop his own management skills, and to find out how to export his products abroad. The BBC Education Web site tells him about the Business and Work Hour on the BBC2 Learning Zone, especially for SMEs - small and medium-sized enterprises, which James realises he is.
James samples part of the programme online, and finds it really interesting to see and hear someone like him talking about how they reached new markets and whom they contacted to help them. He then finds the AGORA Web site, coordinated in the UK by the BBC, which links businesses like his across Europe, and gets the details of some companies which are likely customers for his products. The librarian suggests that James look at the DTI site, where he finds useful information on what he needs to do to export his products to Europe - he'll ask more about that next week, when he meets the business adviser.
James decides there's much more to learn than he thought, and he becomes a regular visitor on Saturday afternoons, keeping up to date to get an edge over his competitors, and using the BBC Alert database to see what broadcasting is in the pipeline that will be useful to him.
(This scenario has been taken from New Library: The People's Network)
How can libraries work with other organisations e.g. a local chamber of commerce in the provision of online business information services?
What implications will the public library computer network have on the type of business information services offered in a small branch library?
What are the implications of making more public library business information services accessible over the network?
What could your library authority begin to do now to prepare for the development of networked business information services?
· Kensington and Chelsea Chamber of Commerce
· Which website
· Guardian Recruitment Net
<http://recruitnet.guardian.co.uk/>
This briefing paper was prepared by UKOLN and used text from New Library: The People's Network.
UKOLN is based at the University of Bath and is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils and The British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC).
This worksheet has been designed to be used as the briefing text for a discussion about the implications of New Library: The People’s Network on the role of libraries in providing citizens' information and encouraging greater involvement in society.
The worksheet briefly summarises the report's recommendations and ideas about how public libraries could develop services in this area. At the end of the worksheet is a series of questions which can be used as a starting point for a discussion.
New Library: The People's Network is a 'defining moment' (Chris Smith, Nov. 1997) for public libraries. It provides a vision of how public libraries can use and must use computer networking technology to develop both new and existing services. It argues that libraries must transform themselves and what they do, that they must be re-equipped and that staff must be re-skilled if they are to offer the services that the citizens of the information society will demand of them.
The Information Society is a term that is well used but seldom defined! It basically means a society which has an economy which is dependent on the creation, storage and accessibility of information on a national and global scale. Typically this information is transferred and accessed using the latest communication and computer technology.
Citizens' Information and Involvement in Society
Public libraries will be a gateway for citizens’ communications in the Information Society. They will provide an access point to the world of networked information which is provided for them by their local communities and both national and local governments. This gateway will allow people both to receive information from official bodies and also communicate with these bodies.
I am a ward councillor for a large rural farming community. With public-spending constraints, we are faced with tough decisions.
For some time, I've used the local library for my surgeries - I'm always surprised at how many people use it, and I get a lot of e-mails from there. The library staff are really helpful and encouraging - especially to older people who find the technology frightening. Now it seems sensible to move the library into the local school, to save money. But what will my constituents think?
I've had meetings with community groups at the library - it's tough going, with very outspoken views. However, I'm well informed: the library has distributed the leaflet with our proposals, but also has gathered responses from a write-back form on the Internet, so I've got a good idea what everyone thinks - and not just the vocal minority. I can also weight the views of local people; those in other areas have also commented, but they won't be using the combined facility. The chief librarian has also been involved, using the video link to answer people's questions about the proposals directly, and a 'Your questions answered' file is kept up to date on the library system, so I can see people's concerns.
We conducted an electronic referendum yesterday and gathered all the votes from my community, who were well informed about the pros and cons. We go ahead with the combined library and school, and I and my fellow ward councillors have agreed to protect Saturday and Sunday afternoon opening from the savings.
The whole thing has gone so well - I feel confident we've made the right decision, and that everyone has taken part and understands the issues and the tough choices. My colleagues in Planning are impressed, and the chair wants to use the process for a consultation on a major development in another rural area. He may not get the support he wants, but at least the response will be more reliable and comprehensive than just hearing the loudest voices.
(This scenario has been taken from New Library: The People’s Network)
How can libraries work with other organisations, e.g. the Local Authority, in the provision of online citizens' information?
What kind of citizens' information services could the library provide over the network?
What kind of citizens' information services will people want to access from home? What implications does this have for the library?
What could your library be doing now to prepare for the type of online citizens' information services suggested by ther report?
This briefing paper was prepared by UKOLN and used text from New Library: The People’s Network.
UKOLN is based at the University of Bath and is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils and The British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC).
This worksheet has been designed to be used as the briefing text for a discussion about the implications of New Library: The People’s Network on the role that public libraries can play in supporting a sense of community through providing local history collections that they provide.
The worksheet briefly summarises the report's recommendations and ideas about how public libraries could develop services in this area. At the end of the worksheet is a series of questions which can be used as a starting point for a discussion.
New Library: The People's Network is a 'defining moment' (Chris Smith, Nov. 1997) for public libraries. It provides a vision of how public libraries can use and must use computer networking technology to develop both new and existing services. It argues that libraries must transform themselves and what they do, that they must be re-equipped and that staff must be re-skilled if they are to offer the services that the citizens of the information society will demand of them.
The Information Society is a term that is well used but seldom defined! It basically means a society which has an economy which is dependent on the creation, storage and accessibility of information on a national and global scale. Typically this information is transferred and accessed using the latest communication and computer technology.
Public libraries already support a sense of community and identity through the acquisition and provision of local history collections.
Through a unique tradition of storing archives, records, maps and film, libraries have long been the custodians of the people’s identity and their community’s self-image.
The use of local history resources is already an area of expansion. People have a natural curiosity to find out about their parents’ and grandparents’ lives and about their descendants from all over the world. Access to global networks of digitised information will help enormously in meeting this natural need for people to learn about their roots.
Digitisation of materials will not only improve access but will also help in the conservation and security of the original source.
Some of the resources it is envisages that the public library network could make accessible are:
Services in support of community history could include:
Harriet Hardcastle, fifty-seven, listens to Radio 5 Live and hears about a major Millennium local history project. She's very interested in the way her town has developed and changed over the years, and she hears that her library will be the main local centre involved in the project.
When she arrives, the librarian knows all about it and shows her to a terminal. She has never used a computer, but soon gets the hang of things. She explores the recent history of the town, looking at maps and seeing photographs of how it has changed. She picks a photo and sends it as a Webcard to her daughter in Australia. There is also a school project, which is fascinating, and she enjoys dipping into the recordings of people of all ages talking about living in the town then and now.
She is invited to contribute a three-minute recording into the computer, but she'll do that next time: first she wants to find out more. When she had typed in her name, a list of other Hardcastles associated with the town had come up on the screen - one of them a distant relative killed in action in the First World War.
This is really getting interesting. Using a combination of original archive materials, including photographs and the archive footage of programmes about the Great War from the BBC, she traces the development of the war and finds out about the circumstances that led to Private Hardcastle's death. The library catalogue shows her there is a special collection on the Great War at the local university, and she can use her library card as identification to go there and look at things.
She see some programmes coming up on tracing your family tree, and discovers she can come to a beginners session at the library that week, run by the local family history society. She is fascinated by this local family connection with world events, and leaves with books on the First World War and some information she has printed out from the computer, as well as an audiobook of letters from the trenches. She is inspired to involve her grandchildren in all this, and sees that the archive of twentieth-century oral history will be a good beginning - they love listening to stories, and these will be real ones.
This scenario is taken from New Library: The People’s Network
· Ancestry World Tree
<http://www.ancestry.com/home/tree.htm>
· Genealogy at Yahoo
<http://www.yahoo.co.uk/Arts/Humanities/History/Genealogy/>
· USA National Archive and Records Administration
· Bedfordshire Family History Society
<http://www.kbnet.co.uk/brianp/bfhs.html>
This briefing paper was prepared by UKOLN and used text from New Library: The People’s Network.
UKOLN is based at the University of Bath and is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils and The British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC).
This worksheet has been designed to be used as the briefing text for a discussion about the implications of New Library: The People’s Network on libraries education and lifelong learning services.
The worksheet briefly summarises the report's recommendations and ideas about how education and lifelong learning services could develop. At the end of the worksheet is a series of questions which can be used as a starting point for a discussion.
New Library: The People's Network is a 'defining moment' (Chris Smith, Nov. 1997) for public libraries. It provides a vision of how public libraries can use and must use computer networking technology to develop both new and existing services. It argues that libraries must transform themselves and what they do, that they must be re-equipped and that staff must be re-skilled if they are to offer the services that the citizens of the information society will demand of them.
The Information Society is a term that is well used but seldom defined! It basically means a society which has an economy which is dependent on the creation, storage and accessibility of information on a national and global scale. Typically this information is transferred and accessed using the latest communication and computer technology.
Public libraries have always played an important role in the learning and education experiences of many people of all ages. This role will continue to be important as more and more education resources become available online. This will allow libraries to offer many new educational opportunities.
Zahir is five years old, and his grandmother brings him to the local library. He enjoys the reading books in school, but he enjoys even more the stories his grandmother tells him - about growing up in India.
The library has books with lots of pictures and writing in Punjabi and English telling the same story. Zahir can also use the touch-screen library computer to see the insides of other books and choose to read them in English or Punjabi. The reader's voice is friendly, and Zahir is getting good at guessing the next words and playing the quizzes there too.
When he has read a book he really enjoys, he races to the computer to write what he thinks of it. Anyone else looking up that book can see what he has written. His younger sister speaks her views of the picture-books she likes, and the computer makes her words appear on the screen.
Although Zahir comes to the weekly story-time, he also enjoys his own story-time on every visit by seeing his favourite writers reading their own books on videos from the National Centre for Children's Books at Newcastle. He likes to watch the video of Shirley Hughes drawing Dogger, the hero of his favourite book when he was four.
There is a special game he plays with his two friends in which they can use the computer to make up a story of their own with different endings and then print it out. If they get stuck on a word, the dictionary helps - sometimes with a picture or a moving image of what they are trying to describe.
When he brings his books back, the librarian suggests other books he might enjoy, as the library has a list of all the ones he has borrowed before and written something good about. He prefers to choose his own, though, and has enjoyed trying to read a really long book on dinosaurs. When he brings it back on Sunday afternoon, the lady gives him a list of stories about dinosaurs - he chooses the ones about Dilly the Dinosaur, as someone his age who lives in the Punjab thought it was very good - and she also tells his grandmother about the Dinamites exhibition that is on this week. His grandmother promises to take him there, and tells him he can visit it again on the CD-ROM in the library.
(This scenario has been taken from New Library: The People’s Network)
· Library Catalogues (British and International)
<http://www.chester.ac.uk/~smilne/libs.htm>
· The Government's consultation paper on the National Grid for Learning
<http://www.open.gov.uk/dfee/grid/index.htm>
· California Virtual University
This briefing paper was prepared by UKOLN and used text from New Library: The People’s Network.
UKOLN is based at the University of Bath and is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils and The British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC).
This worksheet has been designed to be used as the briefing text for a discussion about the implications of New Library: The People's Network on the general role of libraries and the type of services they provide.
The worksheet briefly summarises the report's recommendations and ideas about how public libraries could develop in the future. At the end of the worksheet is a series of questions which can be used as a starting point for a discussion.
New Library: The People's Network is a 'defining moment' (Chris Smith, Nov. 1997) for public libraries. It provides a vision of how public libraries can use and must use computer networking technology to develop both new and existing services. It argues that libraries must transform themselves and what they do, that they must be re-equipped and that staff must be re-skilled if they are to offer the services that the citizens of the Information Society will demand of them.
The Information Society is a term that is well used but seldom defined! It basically means a society which has an economy which is dependent on the creation, storage and accessibility of information on a national and global scale. Typically this information is transferred and accessed using the latest communication and computer technology.
The introduction of information and communication technologies presents a challenge and opportunity for the United Kingdom as great as the Industrial Revolution. However, many communities and citizens will need help to meet the new demands of the Information Society. Public libraries are the ideal vehicle to provide support and access and to encourage the development of the new technological skills that people will need.
I'm fourteen years old, and starting to think what I want to do when I leave school. Looking in my local library for a good read, I discovered they could help me with careers advice. Through their computer, I was able to ask about careers in engineering from something called the National Learning Network. I also got fifteen minutes' free advice from the Careers Guidance Centre twelve miles away, and I paid for another half an hour with my smartcard. I found out what qualifications I'd need and where I could study.
Leeds University looked interesting, so I visited its Web site and got a virtual tour of the campus, including the low-down on what it was really like from students there now.
Obviously I wanted to know what I would be likely to earn, and what the career prospects are like. The business information librarian helped me to pick out four local companies, and I filled in their on-screen forms for more information. They e-mailed me their salary listings and current vacancies straightaway. But do women actually work in engineering? An e-mail to the Equal Opportunities Commission gave me some statistics, which I printed out. It seems more and more women are making it in this field.
The library's video archive had a careers section, and I watched several high-powered women talking about how they'd got to where they are today. Then I joined the special-interest bulletin-board for Women in Engineering at the student rate.
I finished by looking at the online UCAS application - though it'll be a few more years before I'm ready to fill it in.
(This scenario has been taken from New Library: The People's Network)
(draw up a list of actions points).
This briefing paper was prepared by UKOLN and used text from New Library: The People's Network.
UKOLN is based at the University of Bath and is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils and The British Library Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC).