“In the future, it seems, there will be no fixed canons of texts and no fixed epistemological boundaries between disciplines, only paths of inquiry, modes of integration, and moments of encounter.” – Carla Hesse
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/HistoryWired/Hesse/HesseBooksInTime.html
What is the future of libraries when knowledge is no longer created by a knowledgable speaker imparting information onto a learner or student? What you get is a lot of users and students creating knowledge. Where do libraries fit into that?
John Seely Brown talked about this at Internet Librarian. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/17940819 If you can watch this UStream of the talk. It will inspire you, hopefully, like I was inspired, to think about how libraries fit into this kind of future. We can:
- foster study groups
- create serendipitous moments
- find resources and help students connect and synthesize
- create collectives of learning
- when teaching – develop groups of people who will work together to create information/knowledge together
- enable paths of inquiry
- enable groups to work together
- develop critical reasoning skills
- develop the ability to play!