The Source: news about digital libraries and library innovations from around the web

Introducing The Source

Emerging technologies for learning (Note: PDF)

From the Becta website

Becta, the UK Government’s lead agency for ICT in education has recently published “Emerging technologies for learning”, a publication which aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may influence education in the medium term. Some widely held assumptions about the ICT usage and behaviour of young learners on the subject of searching for information are examined.


Managing Tomorrow's People: The Future of Work to 2020

From the PricewaterhouseCoopers website

A simple and engaging report from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Free with simple registration.


Digital Desires: What Are Museums Up To? (Note: PDF)

From the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

Museums, to greater and lesser extents, have shown increased activity in recent years in getting, inspiring, producing and using digital content – actions motivated in part by interests in using digital content to improve transparency, diversify availability and perspectives and encourage fresh experiences. These actions are related to their commonly expressed purposes to collect, preserve, interpret and exhibit objects, the advancing of which can include a host of diverse activities such as research, evaluation, event planning, fundraising, policy-making, recruitment, facility maintenance, marketing and collaboration.


Securing Digital Content (Note: PDF)

From the Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology

The Getty Research Institute is an operating program of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, which also includes the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Leadership Institute and the Getty Foundation. This paper will briefly examine the steps taken at the Research Institute and at the Getty as a whole to ensure that its digital content is managed responsibly. This effort is very much a work in progress, as one of the complications of developing strategies for digital content is that the strategies may require innovative approaches that challenge existing practices, as well as organizational structures and hierarchies that require an openness from all parties and an acceptance that change is likely to be gradual.


'Digital is not different' say 93% of UK researchers (Note: PDF)

From the British Library website

"Access to online research material should be the same as for books" - say 93% of respondents to a British Library survey on researchers' attitudes and needs in the digital age. An overwhelming majority of the survey participants agreed that, in the age of the internet, anyone involved in non-commercial research should be allowed to copy parts of electronically published works such as online articles, news broadcasts, film or sound recordings. The British Library conducted the research because the balance in copyright is being undermined in the digital era.