Libraries Improve Their Service Programs with Technology

Link to August 24 Nashville Tennessean article, "Public library loves old paperbacks but embraces new e-book".

Excerpt: The rise of digital "e-readers" such as the Kindle and the iPad has left some lovers of traditional books fretting about the fate of their beloved bundles of paper and glue.

Yet standing in the Williamson County Public Library among sale tables stacked with Stephen Kings, jammed with John Grishams and packed with Danielle Steeles, county Library Director Janice Keck isn't worried about books, whether they're downloaded or paperback.

She sees room for digital and paper, believing the talk of technology hurting libraries and books is hysteria. Instead, Keck believes new technologies — whether it's computers in general or digital books in specific — bolster libraries.

"People have over-reacted to new technologies as signaling the end of libraries," Keck said. "But what's happened is that libraries have incorporated those new technologies into our service delivery programs and made the library even more useful."