A Field Guide to the Information Commons
By (author) Charles Forrest, Martin Halbert
Publication date:
19 February 2009Length of book:
214 pagesPublisher
Scarecrow PressISBN-13: 9780810861008
Our sources of information, and the practices we use to find it, are in a period of rapid flux. Libraries must respond by selecting, acquiring, and making accessible a host of new information resources, developing innovative services, and building different types of spaces to support changing user behaviors and patterns of learning. A Field Guide to the Information Commons describes an emerging library service model that embodies all three spheres of response: new information resources, collaborative service programs, and redesigned staff and user spaces.
Technology has enabled new forms of information-seeking behavior and scholarship, causing a renovation of libraries that revisits the idea of the "commons"—a public place that is free to be used by everyone. A Field Guide to the Information Commons describes the emergence, growth, and adoption of the concept of the information commons in libraries. This book includes a variety of contributed articles, and descriptive, structured entries for various information commons in libraries across the country and around the world.
Technology has enabled new forms of information-seeking behavior and scholarship, causing a renovation of libraries that revisits the idea of the "commons"—a public place that is free to be used by everyone. A Field Guide to the Information Commons describes the emergence, growth, and adoption of the concept of the information commons in libraries. This book includes a variety of contributed articles, and descriptive, structured entries for various information commons in libraries across the country and around the world.
Information commons is an emerging library service model that encompasses the new ways libraries are providing access to information resources, joining collaborative service programs, and redesigning space to support changing user behaviors and patterns of learning. Part 1 offers contributed articles on topics such as the history of information commons in academic libraries, barriers to working and learning, and technology. Part 2, “The Field Guide,” consists of structured entries for information commons in 29 institutions around the world, with statistics and information on purpose, services, software, print resources, staff, funding or budget, publicity, and evaluation.