Idaho Commission for Libraries

Finally! Summer has started and I’m getting the chance to "jump in"! Thanks for the books. I've started reading them and the posts. Also, have read Collapse-by Jared Diamond. What a thought provoking book for any "ThinkTankers"!

Here's to summer and the future, what ever they hold!
Priscilla Sisson

Graduation is over and now I’m gathering books, articles and reading postings in the Vision’s blog.
I’m jumping in!

I’ve read part of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, by Jim Collins. Commonalities of organizations or companies that have moved beyond “good” to “great” are identified by Collins. One shared element is that almost all their CEO’s or leaders who lead the group from “good” to “great” came from within. Drawing on this point, libraries should look to a cooperative management approach to create great leadership. In school libraries, this would involve the faculty, staff, students, administrators, counselors and the community. The physical presence of our school libraries will be morphed and so must the staff and the system by which new leaders are developed.

I recently read a review of a book by John Beck & Mitchell Wade entitled “Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever.” In it Beck and Wade suggest that in the next five years, Gamers will have a significant impact on society and will be the dominant demographic for libraries. They also suggest that libraries will need to serve and attract both Gamers and Boomers through a number of avenues including creating separate zones in your library, knowing each generation’s culture and being attentive to the needs of both cultures. The review can be found at: http://www.oclc.org/news/publicatio…oclc/2005/267/stayinthegame.htm

I received this e-mail today from the libadmin listserv, and I thought I would post it here. It seems to offer some interesting sites for exploration.

Beth Hill

How do some of the largest libraries in North America see their near-term future? Two of my recent DigitalKoans posts provide links to ARL libraries’ strategic planning Web sites and documents. Web sites were included if the library’s strategic plan included the years 2004 and/or 2005.

http://www.escholarlypub.com/…efforts-at-arl-libraries-part-1/

At the end of his book The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Revolution, David Kusek (who will be joining us in August) and his coauthor Gerd Leonhard put forth six megatrends that they believe will affect the future of music. Since the authors say “knowing how to recognize a trend often leads to recognizing a specific opportunity that may result from it”, here they are for your contemplation:

The accelerating pace and scope of diversity – This trend seems a no-brainer as we are all experiencing its “unfettered, low cost, all-you-can-eat access” to information. However, the authors’ description of our media becoming less ‘push’ and more ‘pull’ is an interesting one to consider. Information consumers are more and more attracted to access that offers choice and control, less TV and more internet for example.

While cleaning out our back room here in Post Falls, I came across photocopies of a series of articles on the future of libraries written by Raymond Kurzweil in the Jan, Feb, and Mar 1992 issues of Library Journal.

I thought it would be interesting to look back 13 years to see what people were saying about the future, as we are supposed to be looking 15 years out in creating our vision.

We've very recently revised both the Mission and Vision Statements for the Marshall Public Library. For whatever it's worth, here's our vision statement - and much thanks to Kay Flowers, too!

Vision Statement

By merging the best of tradition and technology, the Marshall Public Library aspires to provide

The Vision 2020 Think Tank is taking shape. See the agenda at the website. We have attracted terrific resource people, with one to go. Science Fiction writers Bruce Sterling, Brenda Cooper and Louise Marley. Thinkers and writers Dr. Greg Raymond and David Kusek. I expect them to challenge us. Are you ready to be challenged?