Synchronicity

You can see below how NSLA's strategic project: Collaborative Collections aligns closely with thinking O/S!!

"Access is increasingly a network service issue. What about management of collections? ... The related issues of network use and repurposing of space have heightened awareness of the opportunity cost of managing print collections: what is not being done because effort and resources are going into a library resource which is releasing progressively less value in active research and learning practices? This is prompting more thinking about ‘collective collection’ issues: how do you begin to think about managing at the aggregate or group level (consortium, state, country)? We can see this thinking coming through in mass digitization initiatives, shared off–site storage, and initiatives like the U.K. Research Reserve ... which are seeking to reduce the overall volume of materials held by considering what is required at a system–wide level (in this case the national level). "

Quote from Lorcan Dempsey in "Always on: Libraries in a world of permanent connectivity" First Monday [Online], Volume 14 Number 1 (30 December 2008)

Cultural heritage resources at UKOLN

From Lorcan
UKOLN has published a range of short briefing documents aimed at supporting use of networked technologies and services in the cultural heritage sector.

www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/documents

The initial series of documents covers Web 2.0 (with a focus on blogs and social networks), usability, collection description, metadata and preservation.

Start with IntroBytes documents for quick introductions to a variety of topics, and then move on to Best Of to find other useful sources of information and Ariadne to keep up to date

Research resources for the visual arts

Some of the art librarians on the Arlisanz list have been discussing online resource guides to assist students with image research.

Librarians at the Sydney College of the Arts have created an image collections page www.library.usyd.edu.au/subjects/finearts/artimages.html

Other libraries are considering something more along the lines of a multimedia resource, like the iResearch learning objects at http://elearning.library.usyd.edu.au/

While librarians at RMIT have a guide that will be updated eventually into the Libguide format. http://www.lib.rmit.edu.au/guides/images.html

Sustainability

Sustainability is one of the Library's strategic priorities which makes The Green Library blog something to keep an eye on.

The Green Library blog is devoted to documenting significant activities, events, literature, and projects that focus on " ... increasing the efficiency with which buildings use resources — energy, water, and materials — while reducing building impacts on human health and the environment during the building's lifecycle, through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal" of and by libraries.

http://thegreenlibraryblog.blogspot.com/

del.icio.us

Abbey Lee filing cards in the Mitchell catalogue at at 2 am

Your blog as a place to lodge ideas - an idea repository

From Awareness to Funding is the title of a report published recently by OCLC . The report is based on a study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which looked at attitudes and perceptions about library funding and the potential of a large-scale marketing and advocacy campaign to increase public library funding in the U.S.

Some of the findings from the report:

• Library funding support is only marginally related to library visitation
• Perceptions of librarians are an important predictor of library funding support

and

• Voters who see the library as a 'transformational' force as opposed to an 'informational' source are more likely to increase taxes in its support
  

Libraries of the future

Found in Dlib: "What is the future of academic and research libraries? A recently launched web site from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) entitled Libraries of the Future http://www.jisc.ac.uk/librariesofthefuture addresses that question and others concerning how the libraries of today may evolve to address the needs of future information users. With the site, JISC hopes to engender discussion through various means, including interactive Web 2.0 services, a blog, podcasts, an events calendar, various types of documents (such as slides from event presentations), and links to other, related sites"