iPhones, iPods, cell phones…portable technologies are changing the way we communicate with each other. We can almost reach anyone anytime and anywhere! These new technologies are not only significantly impacting the way we store and access information, but how information is created. Only a few short years ago, analog information such as text published in journal articles and books, was converted from static print form into digital form. Today, information can be “born digital”, meaning that the text is written in digital format first and that there may or may not be a print counterpart. Moreover, born digital publications almost always now include video, still images, and audio. And, these publications are interactive in that you can converse directly with the author as well as with others who have similar interests as yourself.
What does this have to do with university libraries? University libraries continuously assess the quality of the resources and services we provide to our communities — students, faculty, staff, researchers, and scholars. During the past several months, the library faculty and staff at Saint Louis University have been developing new ways to provide current information about our resources and services and to enable library users to communicate with library faculty and staff about the quality of our resources and services.
The initial steps down this path can be located at: http://www.slu.edu/libraries/pius/
Here you will locate blogs regarding strategic planning and the latest news on the University Libraries as well as our venture into RSS feeds and podcasting. At this time, we have a student-to-student podcast to assist incoming freshmen learn about the University Libraries. In the Fall, we will be launching a podcast series called “Conversations” which will include interviews with SLU faculty about how they use library resources and services in their research.
University libraries continue to stay a-pace with information technologies that change the way we create information and how we communicate with each other. In this way, we ensure that we are engaging our constituents by providing them with avenues to learn about how libraries are changing services and resources to meet their information needs as well as ways to provide avenues for real-time feedback so that we may continuously improve access to quality information.
