There’s been tons of good stuff written over the years on how libraries are/need to be evolving to meet the needs of the information age, but I’m really looking forward to reading the NY Review of Books review of The Library in the New Age, by Robert Darnton.  Not only to learn about this book, but because whenever I read a review in the NY Review of Books, I also typically receive an instant and compelling up to date education on the subject matter of the reviewed book by an intelligent and thoughtful reviewer.

The review begins as follows:

Information is exploding so furiously around us and information technology is changing at such bewildering speed that we face a fundamental problem: How to orient ourselves in the new landscape? What, for example, will become of research libraries in the face of technological marvels such as Google?

How to make sense of it all? I have no answer to that problem, but I can suggest an approach to it: look at the history of the ways information has been communicated. Simplifying things radically, you could say that there have been four fundamental changes in information technology since humans learned to speak.

Somewhere, around 4000 BC, humans learned to write….

I just came across this very interesting study that analyzes how GenY/the Millennials “Google” approach information gathering and research particularly in relation to access of scholarly information, as well as the use of Libraries. It’s a free 32 page document, released a couple of weeks ago by the British Library and the (Joint Information Systems Committee)  JISC. Here’s a blurb from the conclusion:

The picture that emerges from internet research is that most visitors to scholarly sites view only a few pages, many of which do not even contain real content, and in any case do not stop long enough to do any real reading.This is either a symptom of a really worrying malaise – failure at the library terminal – or maybe a sign that awhole new form of online reading behaviour is beginning to emerge, one based on skimming titles, contents pagesand abstracts: we call this `power browsing’. We urgently need to understand the root causes of this phenomenon…

Anything that comes out of one of the Pew Research Center always merits my attention.  So if you are interested in the changing role of libraries as our collective source for doing research and locating information, I highly recommend taking a look at its new survey, (done in partnership with Leigh Estabrook, Professor Emerita, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign,) entitled, In Search of Solutions: How People Use the Internet, Libraries and Government to Find Help.

Of particular relevance and importance is looking at how the younger generation, including GenY approach finding information. As this group moves into the workplace, this will clearly have implications for the way information and knowledge is located, evaluated, and distributed throughout the enterprise.