Digital Services

Libraries in the Digital Age

Sarah Lane

When you imagine a library, what do you imagine? Spectacles? Book cases as tall as trees?  Hardwood desks? Do you feel compelled to hold your breath and float across the floor to avoid making even a peep?

SHHHH!!!! Quiet in the library. SILENCE!!! In the library.

If so, perhaps your perspective on libraries hasn't kept up with the times of modern libraries.  Libraries are no longer a place where students flock to cram for exams and where your elderly great-aunt goes for help using "The Google."

Sure, you can still study an entire semester's worth of information in 18 hours, and your sweet aunt can find a tour guide to help her navigate the internet at a library. But that's not all! Information doesn't hide in 100-pound books, or creep in members-only data bases anymore. In an age where you can access information at the touch of a button, new challenges are faced.  Information is easy; TOO EASY!

How do you know what information is good information and what information is not? How do you maximize your information literacy? Well, you ask a librarian!

Information isn't knowledge enhancing.  It's LIFE enhancing.  How can I earn a degree? Where can I write a résumé? How can I tackle that do-it-yourself project? How can I help my teenager with his homework using technology I've never used? How can I take my favorite hobby to the next level? Where can I go to use current technology that I don't have at home? Where can I go to escape reality for a few hundred pages? Where can I go to do all of those things FOR FREE? (spoiler alert) THE LIBRARY!

Digital services offered by libraries not only organize and tame the wild world of instant-access information.  Libraries today are more closely aligned with community centers than they ever have been because of advances in digital technology.  Libraries are a place for patrons to gather to enhance knowledge, cultivate creativity, strengthen professional development, and become immersed in worlds and stories that - BONUS - they don't even have to leave the house to access if they have an electronic device and a library card.

An innovative librarian will change the way you think of libraries for good. Check out Digital Services Librarian Amanda Gilbertie:

Digital Services Librarian shares her featured services

With Librarians like Amanda at the helm of digital services offered by libraries, the evolution of digital services won't be a threat to libraries, but an important ally.