{"id":861,"date":"2013-11-29T00:52:07","date_gmt":"2013-11-29T00:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/?p=861"},"modified":"2021-06-26T11:13:15","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T11:13:15","slug":"yearning-for-the-vast-and-endless-sea-switch2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/?p=861","title":{"rendered":"Yearning for the vast and endless sea – SWITCH2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On Tuesday November 26th, I presented to the SWITCH 2013 “Creating Libraries for Communities” conference at the Australian Technology Park. My invitation was based on my successful book From Lending to Learning – the development and extension of public libraries – see here.<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/strong>The theme of my presentation was the strategy needed by public libraries to shift from lending books to supporting learning. I looked first at the current state of public libraries in the UK and gave a forthright explanation of the savage cuts program taking place and the increased reliance on volunteer workers; then I looked at the opportunities for public libraries to support learning; in the final part I talked about the opportunities and challenges offered by digital citizenship, information literacy and social media.<\/p>\n

The reaction by the Australian audience to the closure of libraries in the UK was a mixture of disbelief and anger. Why they asked is the UK doing this? How can they be allowed to get away with this? Six hundred libraries closed is a significant amount – it undermines the infrastructure and sends out a negative message. The UK and Australia have issues with their national levels of literacy – Australia’s policy is enlightened whereas the UK’s is going backwards. The result – the UK will lose out in the Global Auction and fail to come out of recession. But that’s just the economic fallout – more importantly the social impact of denying a society its right to a library service will quite possibly lead to social unrest.<\/p>\n

On a personal note, my presentation to an audience of around 350 librarians was indeed challenging. The use of a live twitter feed displayed alongside my slides gave the audience a voice as I presented. However for me it was rather distracting – being one of those people who cannot stop reading once started. Reaction was positive and much of the discussions I had following this were really interesting and useful.<\/p>\n

SWITCH<\/a> is the New South Wales Public Libraries Association annual conference – nswpla.org.au<\/p>\n

I should like to thank my hosts the SWITCH conference organisers for inviting me to speak and for their support during my visit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday November 26th, I presented to the SWITCH 2013 “Creating Libraries for Communities” conference at the Australian Technology Park. My invitation was based on my successful book From Lending to Learning – the development and extension of public libraries – see here. The theme of my presentation was the strategy needed by public libraries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,7,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":943,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions\/943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandbox2.learnerinformatics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}