The Importance Of Technological Advancements In The Public Library

In the article “Science Says You Should Still Keep Reading Print Books Over e-Books “by Penn Collins, is successful on providing a great detail on how online reading is making people take shortcuts. However, he lacks a data’s to support his arguments.

Reading today is a lot different then it was in the year 868 AD; when the first book was published in China. You know a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers. Society today is so advanced that everything we do is constantly changing whether we realize it or not. For example, the book, before people would go to a bookstore or library to get the books they were interested in. Today society is making fewer trips to the bookstore and library, and making purchases of novels on their e-readers in the comfort of their own home. With these e-readers you can simply purchase any book you would like, some books being under a buck or even free, saving you a trip to the bookstore. E-readers

The author of this article Mrs. Denise Davis is the director of the Office for Research and Statistics of the American Library Association. This means that Mrs. Davis is able to access and is responsible for the reports mandatory for each library across America to turn in each fiscal year, these reports are used to determine what changes the libraries need to make to better serve the public. Given her credibility to write on such topics she then chooses a topic each year to write on to prepare libraries and librarians across the country for the upcoming years. In 2010 Mrs. Davis choose to write on eBooks and their increasing popularity throughout the American population as well as the difficulties libraries have encountered in the past fiscal year to compete with eBooks. Because this article is written in 2010 it shows just how long libraries have struggled with the topic of eBooks and can demonstrate the new policies that have been used by the libraries throughout the past four years. This information can help my research in showing how eBooks have affected the library's behavior, and consequently give me the statistics needed to show the effects of eBooks on the libraries throughout the recent years. Understanding this source is outdated other sources will also likely be used in my final project from the American Library Association websites of statistics of more recent years.

As a new revolution rears its head due to rapidly evolving technology, many are becoming concerned with the potential problems that e-books could present. Ms. Elliot, a retired librarian, expresses her apprehension and concern for this electronic book form through a speech conducted at the “Reading: the future” forum. Directing her speech to mainly booklovers, she also reaches out to parents whose children will be most affected by the development of e-books.

As new technologies are rapidly introduced, people are able to find any information with the access of internet. This leads to people questioning the relevance of libraries and its true purpose. Public libraries cultivate the value of increased education and a social unity to advancing as a society.

The Long Branch Free Public Library was established 100 years ago with a mission to enrich the lives of Long Branch residents by providing resources and opportunities for life-long learning (Long Branch Free Public Library, n.d.). Currently, the library provides a wide range of services such as a computer lab, employment center, after school youth programs, notary services, faxing, and much more. These features make this library more than just a place to get a book, and the library has been nationally recognized for its innovative services, marking a shift in the idea of what a library can be (Kelly, 2014).

E-Books feel different from real books and that has a profound impact on how the text is read. To Klinkenborg the E-Book is an illusion, both are not the same and those who try to make them so are wasting their time. An E-Book isn’t printed on ink, you don’t actually turn pages, and you can’t feel the book as you’re reading it, which can be very un-captivating. Books are meant to be shared, admired, and collected. Sharing books is the cornerstone of collective knowledge and the inability to do so, in regards to E-Books, is bad for

I would say that almost everyone in the United States has been to a public library at some point in their lives. I remember going to the public library in almost every town that I have lived in since I was about five or six years of age. I remember, as a young child, checking out books on all kinds of topics such as dinosaurs, racecars, and Egyptian mythology. As I grew older, my taste in literature evolved. I would check out books about wizards battling against dark magic, snipers saving the world from evil regimes, and every day, ordinary people trying to survive in dystopian worlds. The public library gave me access to all of these literary adventures. I also remember when public libraries started incorporating music, movies, and televisions shows into their in-library resources. I was able

Technology has highly influenced today’s society in many different ways. This mutation has changed present and future generations’ habits when it comes to reading a book. The only reason for this habit change is that when we were young and clueless, all we had were good old hardcover paper books to read, no internet, kindles or ipads. A recent study from scholastic has found that the percentage of children who had read an e-book has nearly doubled since 2010 to almost half of all children aged 9- 17, while the number who say they’ll continue to read books in print have declined from 66% to 58%. Although e-books are a new and upcoming thing of modern society, there are still certain aspects or qualities that books possess which technology never

Alexandra Alter, a books and book publishing reporter for the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), in her article, "Your E-book Is Reading You" discusses the ability for publishers to collect customer reading habits information (analytics) through the use of e-book readers and related software. Prior to working at the WSJ, Alter earned a college degree and master's degrees in journalism and religion from Columbia University. The WSJ is a prestigious newspaper in the United States with over 2 million readers. The WSJ is one of the most widely read newspapers. The target audience for this article consists of general book readers and consumers using e-book readers. The article is a timely as in 2012; the Pew Research Center released a report demonstrating

This article addressed the topic about how many book that American people read. Based on this article, the authors reported that US people read only a single book with 12 months; however, the statistic shows an increasing trends in reading the digital books.

They say that you cannot judge a book by its cover. Increasingly in the United States, you also cannot judge a library’s value to its community by simply its books. In today’s society we observe the changes that have occurred throughout time; one of them being technology. Technology has infiltrated every aspect in our lives and it has changed the way we access and receive information, which presents major challenges and opportunities for public library systems across the world. These new technologies have changed our reading habits, but our need for public space to find information and connect with others is unlikely to change any time soon.

Since their establishment, libraries have served as a gateway to knowledge and services that revolutionized the way the public attains information. Unlike many other institutions, public libraries have grown and evolved along with society by adopting new technology and offering resources tailored to the needs of their local community.

Being a librarian and one who has always “had a fascination with gadgets” (Hanson, 2011), and a passion for both information and technology, Hanson states he has been working for five years to find a better way to join technology and information. He notes “libraries and librarians have perceived themselves as subject to near-constant technological upheaval and information revolution, largely due to the rise of microcomputing, desktop computing and Internet connectivity.” (Hanson, 2011) He believes libraries are situated in a place to encourage libraries to provide mobile library services. With nearly all Americans owning cell phones, accessing the internet via their cell phones and tablets and major service providers focusing on mobile applications instead of applications for the PC, Hanson suggests it is time for libraries to also focus their efforts on providing mobile services.

During the development of technology, most people have shifted to use electronic books to read both academic and non-academic texts. However, despite the technological changes, there has been a wide debate about the benefits of paper books over the e-books. It is important to understand that various reasons are suggesting why people should shift back to using the traditional books rather than the electronic ones. Even though some think that e-books are better that traditional ones, I believe that readers should return to traditional books because of various reasons.