[Air-l] public libraries adopting CTCs

[Kevin Guidry]

On 12/12/06, Michel J. Menou <Michel.Menou at wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>
> What I'm wondering is whether this is an anomalous situation or part
> of a larger trend.  I'm aware that numerous public libraries house
> Community Technology Centers, but I have no information on how many of
> these began life as independent projects and how many were library
> initiatives from the start.

   Can you please offer a working definition for "Community Technology
Centers?"  I assume you are speaking of projects that differ
appreciably from traditional computer labs or computing clusters.
Pending a firm definition, there are two trends that may may relate to
this topic:

1.  It appears that the concept of merging libraries and IT
organizations has been a trend for several years, particularly among
smaller liberal arts institutions in the US.  Oberlin definitely falls
into that category as does my current institution, the University of
the South in Sewanee, TN.  Bryn Mawr has conducted a Merged
Information Services Organizations survey with relevant data;
information can be found at http://www.brynmawr.edu/miso/index.html.
I suspect there may also be relevant data in the EDUCAUSE Core Data
Service; the FY2005 summary was just released a few days ago and is
available at http://www.educause.edu/apps/coredata/reports/2005/.

2.  "Information Commons" appears to have become a buzzword in the
last few years and it may be related to the CTC concept.  I seem to
remember seeing a few presentations at EDUCAUSE and other conferences
on this topic.  I'm sure a search will yield several relevant results.


Kevin