Trend-spotting in Germany

Just a few weeks ago the Bibliothekartag took place. The most interesting german project in these days "Zukunftswerkstatt" was introduced there with lots of presentations and a discussion panel. ("Zukunftswerkstatt" can be translated as "hotbed of ideas" or "idea laboraty".) The slogan of "Zukunftswerkstatt" is "Libraries go playing". The vodcasts from the discussion panel can be found at youtube.





Here a few insights into the sometimes controversal but fruitful discussion:

Mrs Prof. Beger (director of the SUB Hamburg) asked the essential question - with which the whole panel dealt -

What do we have to prepare for?

In these days Google is standard. Whether we like it or not Google is the starting point.

Users do not see that libraries are innovative cos the libraries' rooms are old-fashioned and outmoded. The users only get to know this new breeze when the USE the library and its services.
With the focus on this facts Mrs. Beger asked provoking:

Should we entrust Google with our catalogs?

Albert Bilo (director of the UB Essen) underlined that there are people who want an old catalog room and there are people who want to have an OPAC with new features and user-generated content (OPAC2.0). In his opinion it will develop side by side. He highlighted that librarians have to master the task to fill the gaps. (Sometimes they fill gaps which turned out to be no gaps.)

I want to thank Prof. Hobohm for presenting our project at the stand of "Zukunftswerkstatt". The slides of this presentation can be found at slideshare. One year ago we did a survey among german libraries what their opinion is about innovation and how they deal with trends. The results can be found in the current issue of the journal Forum Bibliothek und Information BuB 06/2009.
Several other interesting presentations are online at Slideshare.