EDITOR'S NOTES
40 Years Covering Innovation in Libraries
by Dick Kaser
Welcome to the official 40th anniversary edition of CIL. Through a couple of owners and a good number of editors, CIL has served as a platform for librarians to share their experience in deploying technology for two generations now—and I don’t know how many tech eras. Suffice to say, it’s been a long ride, and all along the way, innovation has been key. So it is only appropriate that we dedicate this milestone issue to the theme Innovative Libraries.
Sometimes, necessity is the mother of invention. Librarians Kymberly Anne Goodson and Scott McAvoy (UC–San Diego) didn’t stop innovating when they installed a 3D printer for library users. In a eureka moment, they realized they could also use it to make missing parts for library gear. Their article walks you through four projects, at various levels of complexity, with the hope of inspiring you.
Sometimes, innovation involves putting two and two together. At Penn State, Victoria Raish saw the opportunity to leverage the library’s interest in expanding its licensed ebooks collection and her educational mandate to provide equal access to course materials for distance learners. She explains the steps she took in working with faculty to identify course-related ebooks and then make them available within the course management system for students by the first day of class.
Resolving inequities in access was also the driving force behind Emily Myanna’s work for AmeriCorps in closing the digital divide—get this—among Digital Natives. Sometimes, innovation involves seeing outside the box.
Sometimes, it involves thinking things through. That’s what Matthew Benzing (Miami University) did when he developed a method for data curation, which he shares, step-by-step, with you.
And rounding it all out, in our EdTech section, Kimberly Moore (All Saints’ Episcopal School in Fort Worth, Texas) returns to share her teaching strategy for using 3D printing to encourage innovation in the next generation.
Dick Kaser, Executive Editor
kaser@infotoday.com
P.S. Join me and the CIL columnists at the CIL 2020 Editor’s Forum on April 1 from 1:45 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (location TBA). Visit computersinlibraries.infotoday.com/2020/Program.aspx for updates.
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