Some ideas, some questions and a beautiful library building

We concluded our Library 2.0 Masterclass with a visit to Yarra Plenty Library Service’s Mill Park Library.

The building is a huge circle, with easily visible bookstock, but enough space between the shelves so that it feels like it is about people *AND* books, not just books.

From the Masterclass, I’m taking home two great ideas from Helene’s part and a list of questions posed by Chris MacKenzie, that I think that all libraries should be asking.

GREAT IDEA 1. A Netvibes page to show managers what is being said online about the library.  I already have google alerts set up to monitor the library’s online reputation -  “murdoch university library” and “murdoch library -rupert” – but they only come into my email box. I can pull together google searches,  and searches on twitter, flicker, youtube, slideshare – you name it – and then subscribe to each and set up a separate box for it on a single Netvibes page. Then I can just send out the link to anyone  who wants to keep up to date with what is being said about us.

GREAT IDEA 2. A blog about – wait for it, it’s sooo simple – what you are working on right now. Not what you have done, but letting the users know about what you are doing so that they can offer suggestions and help tweak on the way.

CHRIS MACKENZIE’S QUESTIONS

Chris is CEO of Yarra Plenty Libraries and she posed these questions for us to take away and think about:

1. What is the future of libraries ?
2. How do we remain relevant?
3. How can we find a niche for ourselves to replace the book lending focus of the past?
4. What tools do we need to re-invent ourselves ?
5. What mindsets do we need?

There are a few more images in my set on Flickr: Mill Park Library, part of Yarra Plenty Library Service .

Click icon to share

•