David Sasaki had a great post yesterday on PBS' Idea Lab blog. He describes how libraries in some countries in South America are shifting their attention from being resources for books to resources for "globally-connected local content."



Sasaki mentions Enzo Abbagliati, Chile's national library network coordinator. In this video, Abbagliati says the "core part of (his) business" is not to check out books, but to be a catalyst for social change, to improve patrons' quality of life, through the production of local content, local stories - through blogs, digital technology, and web 2.0 tools.

I find this terribly interesting, as I'm weighing my options for grad school. Information and library science schools are currently some of the top contenders. As the old pulp and ink continues to decline in our cultural tableaux, what kinds of services will libraries begin to offer to attract and retain patrons? I'm very attracted to archiving, digitizing, cataloging stories, storing and retrieving important information, all the things a library is supposed to do, but the idea of it being locked away in the libraries of academia (yes, the vaulted Ivory Towers) doesn't sit well with me. If there is momentum to make libraries more participatory, wikumentaries will proliferate.

Part of the problem with Community Media Centers is that you might just have to build one from the ground up. What if, instead, these kinds of community-based, collaborative, digital-storytelling efforts were integrated into local libraries' services? Seems smart - start where there's already community buy-in and infrastructure. The hard part, methinks, would be ensuring that the communities are in charge of their stories, rather than well-meaning librarians imposing their own ideas about what stories need to be told.

---

Permalink (referenced by: 0 posts references: 0 posts)