A solvable challenge Bell related was accessibility to library services and resources. The Horizon Report categorizes the challenges to adopting technology as solvable, difficult, or wicked. Using technology to learn more about users and their behaviors-in the physical space as well as online-will be big in the next couple of years. The Horizon Report includes a learning spaces toolkit for ideas on redesigning spaces and improving building flow.īell also reported on valuing the user experience as a short-term trend. Steven Bell, associate university librarian at Temple University Library in Philadelphia, discussed rethinking library spaces as a mid-term trend. Libraries worldwide reported creating policies and doing staff development around this topic, which encompasses access (repositories), support (metadata standards), and data management (storage and curation). Franziska Regner, head of innovation and development at ETH Library in Zurich, Switzerland, cited research data management as a short-term trend that will be driving technology for the next one to two years. The panel relayed a handful of the report’s findings, beginning with some of the trends. NMC has released 15 years of reports on technology that will affect higher learning, exploring academic and research libraries in a global context.Īccording to Samantha Becker, senior director of communications and publications at NMC, the report was compiled by a panel of 70 experts from 14 countries using a collaborative workspace:. The panel discussion “Ready or Not: Trends, Challenges, and Tech in Academic and Research Libraries” marked the release of the New Media Consortium (NMC) Horizon Report, 2017 Library Edition.
The second full day of the Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) conference in Baltimore featured more calls to action on library funding, discussions of technology trends, and a morning keynote address by author Roxane Gay.