Trouble with your tablet? The Libraries want to help

jgsma said :

ACT Libraries and librarians do a wonderful job but, if evenings are your only time to go to a library, you are out of luck in Belco or Tuggers (yes, some of us can read!) since the new hours started recently. The only libraries with evening openings are Gungahlin, Dickson or Woden.

Tough if you work/attend school Mon-Fri and then work on weekends – no library for you. Of course you could try using ACTION to get from Belco suburbs to Gungahlin in the evening; a two hour round trip. So, no car, no access.

If you use the catalogue online you could possibly order books to be delivered to a library branch near where you work or study. You may be able to pick them up at lunch, or after work.

I agree that there should be late hours one night a week at every library.

The National Library is open until 9pm most nights, I think, but only for reading there. Books would have to be pre-ordered if you could only make it later at night, as they take some time to be delivered.

ACT Libraries and librarians do a wonderful job but, if evenings are your only time to go to a library, you are out of luck in Belco or Tuggers (yes, some of us can read!) since the new hours started recently. The only libraries with evening openings are Gungahlin, Dickson or Woden.

Tough if you work/attend school Mon-Fri and then work on weekends – no library for you. Of course you could try using ACTION to get from Belco suburbs to Gungahlin in the evening; a two hour round trip. So, no car, no access.

trix said :

Libraries are always relevant, even if people have no idea how. Not everyone can afford an e-device of any description, or know how to access good reading on one, or afford to buy books of any format.

But other than making books and other media freely available for loan, libraries *curate* information. Want to know how to start researching *anything*? Ask a librarian. And yes, they know how to use online resources as well (I had a librarian friend doing online searches for me in the very late 80s).

I’m not a librarian, but those people saved my bacon when I was growing up poor. And, of course, it’s great they’re innovating new ways of helping people access information.

There wasn’t a whole heap of information online in the late 1980s. In 1988-89 I was using an academic database on CD-ROM. Actually I recall it being much more user friendly and quicker than the web-based resources now available. But they had to be replaced frequently, and this is before CD-ROMs cost cents, so I suppose the ongoing cost of replacing the CDs eventually gave way to online resources. Pirating wasn’t a problem as no-one had a CD-reader at home.

Nonetheless, I was doing this in a university library, so your point stands…

IP

Librarians rule!

“Ongoing search for relevance” probably sums it up fairly well, but from what I hear, the ACT Library Service is, one way or another, still doing a pretty good job of adding to the sum total of enlightenment and happiness in this town.

Libraries are always relevant, even if people have no idea how. Not everyone can afford an e-device of any description, or know how to access good reading on one, or afford to buy books of any format.

But other than making books and other media freely available for loan, libraries *curate* information. Want to know how to start researching *anything*? Ask a librarian. And yes, they know how to use online resources as well (I had a librarian friend doing online searches for me in the very late 80s).

I’m not a librarian, but those people saved my bacon when I was growing up poor. And, of course, it’s great they’re innovating new ways of helping people access information.