Week #6 Thing 15 the future of libraries

After reading over several of the articles on the subject of the future of libraries I thought about a few different things.
1. It has been true for several years that we need to push out more to the place where the students are using the technology if we want input in how it is done. Being in an elementary school I have the opportunity through my classes to impact every student and how they use the resources we make available but as much as possible I want input into how the students use the resources everywhere they use them and with whomever they use them. This is an ongoing challenge.
2. We still need to filter at the elementary level to ensure that the content our students are exposed to is age appropriate. That is why targeted searches and limited web use has been used extensively in elementary. But we need to have many of the technologies available so that students are ready to move to the next level and understand how to determine if a website is good for research or is better for personal uses so we don't want the searches to be too restricted. I also think that the library even at the elementary level needs to be available to the families 24x7 and that a library webpage would be a good vehicle of communication and accessibility.
The discussion of the future of libraries seems to be a multi-threaded discussion because of the different requirements of public libraries, elementary school libraries and middle or high school libraries. I am sure Universities and special libraries also have unique requirements that would change the discussion somewhat. But it is an important topic. One that we need to talk continuously about and actively search for ways to add Web 2.0 capabilities to our libraries.

One area in education that Web 2.0 has a big impact with is authentic audiences. It is so much easier to share student work with other students. When students know that they will have a real audience they put more effort into the delivery because it seems so much more relevant to them.