As a learning technologist it is a reasonable question to ask - why should I support or even care about libraries? What have they got that I want or need? If I need any information or want to find out about something I can just use the Internet on my computer, or even more easily, on my tablet or smart phone. If I want to read a book I can use my eBook reader or my phone or download a podcast. As a learning technologist my purpose is to use technology to help people learn and teach and enable them to use electronic methods of communication. One of the main advantages of using technology is that it means that learning can happen 'anytime, anyplace, anywhere' - so why do I need the library?
The simple answer is that learning technologists need libraries in the same way as most other educationalists and people involved in education do, as a place that can be used to access information. No matter how useful and interesting a resource is, there has to be a place and a device or machine to access it from. It may be the case that many people including students have their own device to access the resource but not all and in some situations not many. There has to be an open access learning space that provides computers and internet access for users and a place for people to use their own devices and connect to WiFi. This learning space needs to be somewhere that is suitable for independent learning so not a classroom or teaching room.
More importantly to learning technologists there needs to be some support and expertise in case of difficulty in accessing the resource - if a student can't access the VLE then the brilliant resource that sits there will not be of use. If you can't access the system then the online help is not accessible either.
So there needs to be some face to face support in an accessible learning space and this face to face support needs to include expertise. Expertise to access learning resources but also expertise to support access to information and knowledge. An important aspect of using learning technologies is information literacy and digital literacies which are vital - there is too much information available out there to access it randomly. It is impossible to use information without there being an awareness of how to use it and how to judge relevance and appropriateness. These are all skills that are ideally provided by libraries - they provide a place where information can be accessed with the help of expertise to search for it and evaluate it.
The information needs to suit the user and there are still many instances where the information that is most suitable is not in electronic format. Books are still essential although gradually they will become less in number in a paper based format and there will be more diversity of format and more open access publishing. There is no point at this stage saying that books should be dispensed with as ebooks are available - it's not true, yet. Libraries know they have to change and are changing - lots of librarians are learning technologists and vice versa (although neither side is likely to admit it). Technology is used to good effect in libraries and is the way forward - as long as people know how to use it.
So stepping out of an educational environment into everyday life, how do people access information and knowledge - how do they find out about something? There has to be a place where people can access resources. It's easy to forget as a learning technologist or as someone who works in an educational environment that not everyone has access to a computer or even knows how to use the internet or can afford to do so. There needs to be places that are free and accessible and provide expertise and support in order to enable everyone to find the information and knowledge that they want and need. Libraries do this.
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