If it's not in the Internet it does not exist

"If it's not in the Internet it does not exist": that's the most common notion among Net savvies -and even among library users.


Unfortunately, libraries do not make any "noise" online: Users don't feel the library! Users don't perceive the value libraries add to information. That's no wonder: the OPAC sucks, the information architecture is complicated...

• 1. Librarians have to start to set the information into a context: via combining more metadata, via relating recources, via visualizing the subject terms etc.

• 2. Catalogs have to be opened up to other systems



• 3. Libraries have to go where the users are

• 4. Libraries can only serve the users if they really KNOW the specific needs of the users - so the librarians have not to talk TO them but WITH them



• 5. Libraries have to allow users to participate ... in order to design the library's future together