The New Media Consortium recently released the NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Library Edition [pdf], produced in collaboration with the University of Applied Sciences in Chur, the Technische Informationsbibliothek in Hannover, and the ETH-Bibliothek in Zurich. The NMC Horizon Project started in 2002, and each year it investigates emerging technologies and trends likely to affect education around the globe. That means the Library Edition is focused on academic and research libraries rather than public libraries, but some of the topics discussed in the report will look very familiar to any type of library.
- Prioritization of mobile content and delivery (page 8) “‘The Right to e-Read’ campaign by the European Bureau of Library Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA) is a Europe-wide initiative to raise awareness for stakeholders and policy makers about the challenges libraries face in providing e-books and digital content because of copyright concerns. Libraries in the United States are closely following the legal policies regarding the purchasing and resale of digital content.”
- Rethinking the roles and skills of librarians (page 22) “A number of universities have experimented with fellowship programs and other non-permanent hiring situations that bring in people with the desired skills to work on discipline-specific projects. This strategy provides libraries the opportunity to test new types of professionals and see if their roles merit the creation of a new position.”
- Competition from alternative avenues of discovery (page 26) “A recent Slate article explored libraries’ potential transition from print materials to technology and training. Academic and research libraries are incorporating more authentic experiences for information discovery — immersive opportunities that Google Scholar and Wikipedia cannot yet foster. Seattle University’s Lemieux Library, for example, is home to the Media Production Center where students and faculty receive the training and support needed to turn their creative ideas into tangible products.”
- Semantic web and linked data (page 44) “Library catalogs will be a more valuable information resource if their metadata is an interoperable part of the semantic web and not siloed in separate inaccessible databases. It is no longer enough for libraries to have their own websites with collection data; there is growing emphasis to integrate these collection catalogs into sites and services more frequently accessed by users.”
Articles from Ohio Web Library:
- Library as classroom. (Library Journal, 5/15/2014, p36 | Michael Stevens)
- Emerging technologies center. (Nursing Education Perspectives, Mar/Apr 2014, p131-132 | Diane J. Skiba)
- The New Media Centers’ consortium: A tool for legitimizing technology in higher education. (Journal of Research on Computing in Education, Spring 1998, p296,11p. | David Richard Moore and John K. Burton)
