Perché le biblioteche servono ancora, nonostante internet

The most "social" and useful thing that libraries can do is - today as in the past - to help citizens to find, evaluate and exploit the information sources necessary to carry out their social roles and tasks in the best way, also ensuring that citizens of the future will continue to access the bibliographic documents produced both in the past and in the present

Perché le biblioteche servono ancora, nonostante internet

The most "social" and useful thing that libraries can do is - today as in the past - to help citizens to find, evaluate and exploit the information sources necessary to carry out their social roles and tasks in the best way, also ensuring that citizens of the future will continue to access the bibliographic documents produced both in the past and in the present

Developing Optimal Subject Representation for Adult Non-fiction Public Library Collections: The Intersections of Hermeneutics and Technology

The problem of how to select a mix of subjects for a public library collection that facilitates a holistic representation of knowledge is grounded in the question of how subjective choice can adequately suffice when a selector lacks specialised domain awareness. This paper advocates bringing hermeneutic insight to bear upon the interpretation of subject priority to create a more defined link between objectivity in knowledge organisation and the promotion of a more generalised communal understanding. The paper also outlines how knowledge domains that are considered appropriate to civil society settings can be manifested in the acts of selecting and evaluating collections and how, through bracketing these choices, a more reflexive practice might be achieved. A conceptual innovation is offered which combines the linking of a hermeneutic approach to subject knowledge with comparative meta-collection analysis, utilising the WorldCat union catalogue, to help optimise the range and depth of available information in public libraries

Perché le biblioteche servono ancora, nonostante internet

The most "social" and useful thing that libraries can do is - today as in the past - to help citizens to find, evaluate and exploit the information sources necessary to carry out their social roles and tasks in the best way, also ensuring that citizens of the future will continue to access the bibliographic documents produced both in the past and in the present

Perché le biblioteche servono ancora, nonostante internet

The most "social" and useful thing that libraries can do is - today as in the past - to help citizens to find, evaluate and exploit the information sources necessary to carry out their social roles and tasks in the best way, also ensuring that citizens of the future will continue to access the bibliographic documents produced both in the past and in the present

Towards a Critical Turn in Library UX

In the past decade, cataloguing and classification and information literacy have experienced a critical turn, acknowledging the political, economic, and social forces that shape complex information environments. Library user experience (UX) has yet to undergo such a transformation, however; instead, it continues to be seen as a toolkit of value-neutral approaches for evaluating and improving library services and spaces to enhance user satisfaction and engagement. Library UX draws upon ethnography but is also informed by the principles and values of usability and design. Little attention has been paid to the origins or epistemological underpinnings of UX as a construct, the ways these inform UX practice, and ultimately, how they impact what academic libraries are and what they do, however. With the exception of a 2016 article by Lanclos and Asher, the relationship between corporatism, UX, and the mission and values of academic libraries has yet to be acknowledged or examined. This paper seeks to address this gap. While a handful of library UX practitioners have started to promote a more thoughtful study of individuals\u27 activities and needs, in the main, library UX remains a theoretically weak practice, one that sets out to solve complex problems with practical “solutions.” The failure to interrogate UX as a construct and a practice necessarily forecloses the user-centered problems we address, the tools and strategies we use, and the solutions we propose. We contend that UX would benefit from a deeper engagement with user-centered theories emerging from Library and Information Science (LIS) and critical and feminist perspectives on practice, embodiment, and power or risk perpetuating oppressive, hegemonic ideas about the academic library as a white space and its users as able-bodied