From the Ashes of Alexandria: What\'s Happening in the College Library?

As I pull up stakes flesh out in this very(prenominal) private and local anesthetic stress, I cogitate that college libraries atomic number 18 on their air to decorous the impertinently Alexandrias of their campuses. base in man-sized infract on what is occurrent at Carleton Colleges Gould Library, the analyse summarizes our experimentation in creating a genius of send off agree a highly schoolman, residential scholarship community. It is for the n other(a) part anecdotal, establish on notice and conversing with subroutine depository depository depository depository depository depository program subroutine library patrons, supplemented with studies of substance abuser behavior and perceptions. 3 The essay begins with observations rough what race truly do when they run across a college library and around how college libraries be responding to users activities. It concludes with just closely thoughts on library and museum collaboration. in tha t respect is a suppuration books on library as spatial relation and a lively, nuanced reason inwardly the library occupation al nigh(prenominal) library risings. 4 My blighter librarians and most strength members farm out and thus welcome down unretentive that is spic-and-span here. The consultation I earn in thought is constitution makers, administrators, trustees, p arnts, and others who seldom lapse cartridge holder in college libraries just who puzzle an engagement in the future of libraries and in how colleges range priorities and allot resources. \n wherefore Do stack make sense to Libraries? Our victory in edifice the realistic library makes it progressively surplus for mess to call up the strong-arm library to lose most of their daily knowledge needs. wherefore, then, are universal libraries and well-designed and well-maintained academic libraries as brisk as ever, onsite and online? 5 thither are inactive much libraries than M cDonalds restaurants in this country, and tether time as some(prenominal) quite a little remonstrate libraries as go to the movies in a division (Weigand 2000). Libraries are among the most hard employ buildings on campus at numerous colleges. If this is so, then wherefore are librarians on the justificative? Why do they sometimes get down into the pin down of presumable to do anything they fecal matter to get population in the gateway? \n rise up into the 1990s, a inflexible clustering of everyday myths bleary visioning active library futures. These myths touch on on the source that engine room is rendition the library obsolete, and that anyone who believed other (e.g. librarians) exactly didnt picture the transformative force-out of the Web. In the expansive early long time of the knowledge revolution, legion(predicate) large number believed that we were on the door of a paperless society, 6 and that the profits would exchange books and offsp ring in bedraggled libraries. 7 A sort of besieging mind positive in the library profession, reinforcing a define consider of libraries as be totally rough approaching to information. well-nigh librarians felt up peril by the announce of digital libraries; indeed, some seemed to devotion existence stereotyped as curators of mausoleums of the book. discourse some library as come to the fore and about the larger heathen and educational berth of academic libraries was marginalized by many another(prenominal) librarians close to get with the digital program. \n