The Future of Academic Libraries: An Interview with Steven J Bell

Tue Mar 27 13:30:02 EDT 2012

*** Apologies for Receipt of Duplicate Postings ***

Colleagues/

IMHO > Well worth The Read and Watch !

/Gerry

Paul Zenke > 3/26/2012 >  I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Steven J. Bell, the Associate University Librarian for Research and Instruction at Temple University, and current Vice President and President Elect of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). [snip]

“What can we do as academic librarians to better prepare ourselves for what is certainly an uncertain future? We just have to think more entrepreneurially and look for these opportunities.”

Unbundling of Higher Education

Steven thinks new learning initiatives like MITx and Udacity’s massive open online courses are an opportunity for academic libraries to serve non-traditional, potentially unaffiliated students, who he refers to as higher education’s new majority learners. In a recent article from his From the Bell Tower Library Journal column he suggested two possible scenarios for academic libraries within this emerging unbundled higher education landscape.

[snip]

Alt-Textbook Project

College students are spending on average $1,100 a year on books and supplies. Temple’s new Alt-Textbook Project is trying to change that. The initiative provides faculty members with a $1,000 grant to create new original digital learning materials with the goal of creating free, timely, high-quality resources for students. Steven recently spoke to Temple’s student radio WHIP about the project. Steven discusses the Alt-Textbook project as part of a larger Alt-Higher Education movement.

Blended Librarians

Steven, with his colleague John D. Shank, developed the concept of the Blended Librarian, a new form of academic librarianship that integrates instructional design and technology skills into the traditional librarian skill set ...

[more]

Source and Fulltext Available Via

[ http://bit.ly/H90YTP ]

BTW-1: Steve and I both presented at the TICER 2005 (The Netherlands) conference; I attended in person and Steve did so virtually.

The title of my presentation was "Wikis: Disruptive Technologies for Dynamic Possibilities" and is available via

[ http://disruptivescholarship.blogspot.com/ ]

Enjoy !

Gerry McKiernan

Associate Professor

and

Science and Technology Librarian

Iowa State University

152 Parks Library

Ames IA 50011

http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/

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2012-03-27
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