Impact of Emerging Technologies on Reference Service and Bibliographic Instruction - Contributions in Librarianship and Information Science

About the Book

Information technologies are having a profound impact on the ways libraries are providing traditional services. This book identifies emerging technologies and assesses their impact on two distinct yet interdependent entities, library service and library education. While other publications identify technologies and speculate on applications, this volume focuses on the impacts of information technology on several aspects of librarianship.

The book first delineates emerging technologies and their impact on reference services and bibliographic instruction. It then discusses the resultant restructuring of reference services and the relationship between librarians and patrons. Bibliographic instruction is presented as a new paradigm based on the imperative that no faculty member should teach and no student should graduate without being fully information literate. The work also discusses staffing, organization, and financial support, and the structural and political placement of the library within the parent organization.

Book Synopsis

Information technologies are having a profound impact on the ways libraries are providing traditional services. This book identifies emerging technologies and assesses their impact on two distinct yet interdependent entities, library service and library education. While other publications identify technologies and speculate on applications, this volume focuses on the impacts of information technology on several aspects of librarianship.

The book first delineates emerging technologies and their impact on reference services and bibliographic instruction. It then discusses the resultant restructuring of reference services and the relationship between librarians and patrons. Bibliographic instruction is presented as a new paradigm based on the imperative that no faculty member should teach and no student should graduate without being fully information literate. The work also discusses staffing, organization, and financial support, and the structural and political placement of the library within the parent organization.

Review Quotes

?For those familiar with these issues, it is a good book to have in hand when making the case for expenditures and changes in a library services to non-libary administrators.?-Journal of the American Society for Information Science

"For those familiar with these issues, it is a good book to have in hand when making the case for expenditures and changes in a library services to non-libary administrators."-Journal of the American Society for Information Science

About the Author

GARY M. PITKIN is Dean of Libraries at the University of Northern Colorado. He has presented more than 35 papers and seminars and serves as an international consultant on information management and technology, library automation and networking, operational costs and management, and organizational change and behavior. He has authored or edited over a dozen books and articles related to higher education, academic librarianship, and information management and serves as the editor of Technical Services Quarterly.