7 -- Keeping up

1. Are You Experienced?
Exploring User Experience
in Public Libraries
Resources (keeping up with current
and upcoming library technologies)

2. How can I keep up?
Here are the resources I find the most
useful. I am sure I am going to leave off
some of your favorite resources. Or even
forget some of my favorite resources. I am
sure I will hear about it….

3. Library Technology Reports
www.alatechsource.org/ltr/index
published 8 times a year: each issue
focuses on "products, tools, and projects."
In-depth overviews of technology topics.

4. Computers in Libraries
www.infotoday.com/cilmag/
"a monthly magazine that provides complete coverage of
the news and issues in the rapidly evolving field of library
information technology."
Written in a you-can-do-this
style so that even non-techies
can appreciate the topics.

5. Select articles and columns from such
magazines as:
• American Libraries: americanlibrariesmagazine.org/
• Library Journal: lj.libraryjournal.com/
• School Library Journal: www.slj.com/
Just skip all that blather about welcoming
teens into the library, promoting access
for the elderly, inspiring patrons with this
or that, etc! 
Go straight to the tech stuff!

6. Library Technology Guides website:
www.librarytechnology.org/
Thanks to Marshall Breeding, anything you want to know
about ILSs and Discovery tools, vendors, current market news,
who-uses-what, etc. An invaluable resource.

7. And mark on your calendar the times when Library
Technology Guides makes available two studies:
1. Results from Perceptions (early every year, January or
February), the International Survey of Library Automation)

8. 2. The Library Systems Report (every April), which used to
appear in Library Journal (as Automation Marketplace) but
appeared in American Libraries in 2015.
NOTE: Library Journal published “Managing Multiplicity” by Matt Enis
on April1 (Volume 140, Issue 6, pp30-34), which may be the new
direction for this annual overview. It is online at:
lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/04/technology/managing-multiplicity-library-
systems-landscape-2015/

9. TechSoup website: www.techsoup.org/
You don't have to buy software here (although I recommend it), but the
articles are worth your time.

10. Is that all?
No, but that is enough to keep you aware of
past, present, and future technology in the
library world.
Just find your favorite resources and --
above all -- stick with them or else fall behind
(i.e., you can't keep up with technology by
reading about it every 6 months…).

11. In sum…
Get acquainted with the non-fad technology
that you encounter every day in the library,
the technology that will serve the user-
experience of librarians and library users for
years to come.
Then you can get acquainted with
Facebook, 3-D printers, and whatever other
technology comes our way…because it will.