Day 14 #blogjune Library Futures Reading List

This afternoon on Twitter, I retweeted a link @clairebrooks shared, to an article entitled 100 Articles that Every Journalist Should Read.

I don’t know all that much about journalism as a profession, but I do know that, like librarianship, journalists are facing paradigm-shifting times at the moment, where all the traditional, familiar and accepted practices of their roles are changing. Newspapers are going out of business, and all the old certainties are vanishing. It must be an interesting time to be a journalist – are journalists reinventing themselves? How are they handling the online world, and this brave new distribution medium, the internet? The list of articles shows a great range of thoughtful pieces looking at all aspects of the journalist’s role.

@clairebrooks rightly said, in response to my tweet:

clairebrooks @flexnib I’d like to see your library equivalent 100 articles- perhaps you could crowd source? #library 14/06/11 2:15 PM

So, here I am, asking you: what article (or articles) would you recommend to anyone working in a library, who is thinking about the future of libraries and their role in building this future?

I must confess to having had a LOT of difficulty trying to come up with even just one article that I would recommend. It’s pathetic, I know.

So, in the same spirit as the journalists’ list, please help me create a list of articles you think every library staff member should read:

In keeping with the spirit of the era of participatory media, this list is going to be generated in part as a conversation, and not simply delivered as some immutable verdict. So please feel free to join in by nominating and writing your own commentary about any articles that you believe should be essential reading for [library staff].

These can be blog posts, journal articles, trade publication articles… are there any books or book chapters you’d recommend? (Gee, I’m such a librarian)

If you recommend a journal article, it would be nice  if it can be linked to freely (ie not trapped behind a publisher’s paywall), but please don’t let that stop you from recommending any such article, regardless.

Please also tell us why you believe your article(s) should be recommended reading for library staff. Feel free to either leave a comment here, blog your response (in which case I’d love you to let me know you’ve blogged), or email me (flexnib at gmail).

I am not sure if we can come up with 100, but I’m very interested to see what you nominate, and why.