Dan Linssen Pines for a Library of His Own Making

                                            Not what Dan has in mind.           

Full disclosure: I was at "yesterday's central library" on Wednesday, March 7. 2012. (Presented a workshop for the Nicolet Federated Library System.) From 12:30 to 12:45 and again from 4:30 to 4:45, I walked around the two floors of public service space where perhaps as many as 100 people were engaged in variety of activities: browsing the shelves, checking out materials, asking staff for assistance, using computers, accessing the library's wi-fi, reading newspapers (yes, print newspapers, of all things), working in small groups, and reading alone.

Apparently, there are still people in Brown County who like to visit a comfortable place.

And then there's the programming aspect of what libraries do, not all of it requiring "technology-enhanced meeting space".

Dan Linssen column: Embrace tomorrow's technology over yesterday's central library. (Green Bay Press-Gazette, 3/18/2012)

Excerpt: For $3 million, we could build and equip a very nice 20,000-square-foot technology center that could be accessed online by users with computers or electronic readers, and could offer some comfortable and inviting on-site computer/reader stations for walk-in use. The facility even could offer limited [?] technology-enhanced meeting space for public use. We could then spend another $2 million to purchase 10,000 electronic readers for loan to users who don't have access to computers or readers. That would leave $10 million to spend on digitizing and archiving the library's current print collections, establishing a site-maintenance and technology upgrade fund and providing transition assistance to county residents as we migrate to a digital library world.

There's something missing here, right? 

In his design for what he wants in a library technology center, Dan omits a critical public library service element.

Children's services.  (And maybe Dan should take a look at this.)

Library Journal, February 15, 1985

Here's the link to the New York Times article.

Dan Linsser, meet Frank Novak.   The two of you seem to be in a rush to get to the same destination.

Rockford Public Library Facilities and Digital Library Plan (Draft)

In a position paper prepared at the request of Save our Rockford Library, Jane Pearlmutter, Associate Director Emeritus and Instructor at  the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and Information Studies, observes that “RPL seems like a passenger who knows it’s time to go somewhere, but is standing on the wrong platform, waiting for the wrong train.”

Here are a couple of other thoughts to ponder.

Link to American Demographics article.

Link to Billington's op-ed piece.