News Report #2

Kimberly Rhine
LIB 103
Ms. Pemberton
Ms. Cody

Assignment #2- News Report

“Technology Keeps Libraries Popular-Internet Access and Books on CD are Hot Commodities” By Elida S. Perez. August 23, 2008. <http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080823/NEWS/808230349/1001>

This article is about how since the Internet is becoming more and more prevalent in people’s lives that libraries are surprisingly not taking a beating. I personally didn’t even think about this. They say that most people thought the Internet would make libraries like the “Beta video and eight track tapes.” Gannet News Service however has found data that suggests that this is completely not the case. Many area libraries are in fact, are seeing an increase in the amount of people circulating books and the amount of visitors who are coming to programs that they heard about online. It has also helped more attendance for community-centered events because through the internet they were about to know about them better.
Not only is the public finding the Internet to be helpful but the library officials and workers have found today’s new technology very helpful in doing things such as helping patrons find information. People are saying that the most helpful thing that technology has done for the library was turning paper catalog’s into online catalogs. I personally would most definitely have to agree. I swear I ended up either giving up on finding books I wanted when it was paper or having to bug a librarian to help me; and god forbid if they weren’t available right about I’d for sure just give up. Luckily at an early age they were converting to library catalog’s online. In addition to the library catalogs online many people have reported coming to the library because of the large increase of DVD and CD collections that the library has obtained. Overall technology has not technically been detrimental to libraries but has actually aided in the use of libraries.