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New Top Technologies Every Librarian Needs to Know
The time is right for this all-new survey of the library technology that’s already transitioning from trend to everyday reality. As in the previous best-selling volume, Varnum and his contributors throw the spotlight on the systems, software, and approaches most crucial to the knowledge institutions of tomorrow. Inside, readers will find concise information and analysis on topics such as
• mobile technologies;
• privacy-protection technology tools;
• the Internet of Things (IoT);
• virtual reality;
• bots and automation;
• machine learning applications for libraries;
• libraries as digital humanities enablers;
• visualizations in discovery systems;
• linked open data;
• embeddedness and Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI);
• special collections and digital publishing;
• link rot, web archiving, and the future of the Distributed Web; and
• digital repositories.
Sure to spark discussions about library innovation, this collection is a must have for staff interested in technology or involved with strategic planning.
• mobile technologies;
• privacy-protection technology tools;
• the Internet of Things (IoT);
• virtual reality;
• bots and automation;
• machine learning applications for libraries;
• libraries as digital humanities enablers;
• visualizations in discovery systems;
• linked open data;
• embeddedness and Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI);
• special collections and digital publishing;
• link rot, web archiving, and the future of the Distributed Web; and
• digital repositories.
Sure to spark discussions about library innovation, this collection is a must have for staff interested in technology or involved with strategic planning.
- GenresNonfiction
272 pages, Paperback
Published February 25, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 23, 2021
Need a primer of technologies that are either emerging or relevant to libraries right now? New Top Technologies Every Librarian Needs to Know, the second LITA Guide from editor Kenneth J. Varnum, focuses on technologies that are moderately new to libraries. Throughout the text, authors first describe the technology and give cases studies or examples of how they are being used in libraries. Library professionals who are skeptical daring visions of the future years from now, will be refreshed to find predictions of each technology or trend are limited to the near future, or a maximum of five years from now.
New Top Technologies was published five years after a similar 2014 title, The Top Technologies Every Librarian Needs to Know: A LITA Guide is also edited by Varnum. The 2019 book is twice as long and only lightly reviews on the technologies and predictions of the 2014 text. New Top Technologies has a completely new set of authors and rarely covers any of the same topics from 2014. Readers of the 2019 book will be dismayed to learn topics such as augmented reality and text mining are completely absent; one must look to other books including some edited by Varnum for this content.
Other topics deemphasized in New Top Technologies are instructional technologies, save a chapter on Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) and embeddedness and more broadly, technology and accessibility. Overall, the strengths of the book lie in areas more fitting to cataloging librarians, archivists, or librarians with scholarly communication, digital humanities, and data visualization as part of their work.
New Top Technologies is organized into four parts, “Data, Services, Repositories and Access, and Interoperability.”
The first section on Data, starts out with a rousing chapter on linked data and conveys the pervasiveness of its impact and then moves on to the Internet of Things chapter. Solutions to the age old, hard-to-get-inspired about problem of link rot, coupled with reference rot and link resolvers are shared in chapter three. Rounding out the first section is a perhaps too practical chapter on web archiving, though it does speak to the importance of libraries as “memory institutions” and “stewards of cultural heritage” (54).
Services, the second section of the book, covers trends in privacy protection tools, data and information visualization and virtual reality. The chapter on privacy provides a persuasive overview of the familiar issue of privacy and several helpful recommendations on tools for librarians to learn more. Readers less familiar with information and data visualization should read chapter seven about information visualization before chapter six on data for discovery to understand context.
The third section of the book revolves around repositories and access. Some content between chapters overlaps and some terminology seems to conflict, and readers may be left with a desire for more coverage on data repositories. Altogether, the chapters in this section successfully imparts the significance of scholarly communications, special collections, and the related digital technologies.
Lastly, New Top Technologies covers five topics under the theme of ‘interoperability’ which could conceptually be tied together better. A chapter about the standard International Image Interoperability Framework again points to the strength of coverage of digital repositories but in a slightly different angle and the aforementioned Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) a gold mine of new developments. The chapters on bots and machine learning work to bring trendy technologies to the forefront for library professionals. The book ends with probably these most familiar technology for library professionals, mobile technology and presents an interconnected future with many other trends and technologies covered in the text.
So, does every librarian memorize and implement every technologies and trend in this book? To quote the author of the chapter on machine learning (ML), Alan Darnell, “Not every librarian needs to be an expert in ML or to become a data scientist, but it will be in our best interests…to…expand the scope of our professional practice” (235). New Top Technologies will get library professionals much closer to this goal.
New Top Technologies was published five years after a similar 2014 title, The Top Technologies Every Librarian Needs to Know: A LITA Guide is also edited by Varnum. The 2019 book is twice as long and only lightly reviews on the technologies and predictions of the 2014 text. New Top Technologies has a completely new set of authors and rarely covers any of the same topics from 2014. Readers of the 2019 book will be dismayed to learn topics such as augmented reality and text mining are completely absent; one must look to other books including some edited by Varnum for this content.
Other topics deemphasized in New Top Technologies are instructional technologies, save a chapter on Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) and embeddedness and more broadly, technology and accessibility. Overall, the strengths of the book lie in areas more fitting to cataloging librarians, archivists, or librarians with scholarly communication, digital humanities, and data visualization as part of their work.
New Top Technologies is organized into four parts, “Data, Services, Repositories and Access, and Interoperability.”
The first section on Data, starts out with a rousing chapter on linked data and conveys the pervasiveness of its impact and then moves on to the Internet of Things chapter. Solutions to the age old, hard-to-get-inspired about problem of link rot, coupled with reference rot and link resolvers are shared in chapter three. Rounding out the first section is a perhaps too practical chapter on web archiving, though it does speak to the importance of libraries as “memory institutions” and “stewards of cultural heritage” (54).
Services, the second section of the book, covers trends in privacy protection tools, data and information visualization and virtual reality. The chapter on privacy provides a persuasive overview of the familiar issue of privacy and several helpful recommendations on tools for librarians to learn more. Readers less familiar with information and data visualization should read chapter seven about information visualization before chapter six on data for discovery to understand context.
The third section of the book revolves around repositories and access. Some content between chapters overlaps and some terminology seems to conflict, and readers may be left with a desire for more coverage on data repositories. Altogether, the chapters in this section successfully imparts the significance of scholarly communications, special collections, and the related digital technologies.
Lastly, New Top Technologies covers five topics under the theme of ‘interoperability’ which could conceptually be tied together better. A chapter about the standard International Image Interoperability Framework again points to the strength of coverage of digital repositories but in a slightly different angle and the aforementioned Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) a gold mine of new developments. The chapters on bots and machine learning work to bring trendy technologies to the forefront for library professionals. The book ends with probably these most familiar technology for library professionals, mobile technology and presents an interconnected future with many other trends and technologies covered in the text.
So, does every librarian memorize and implement every technologies and trend in this book? To quote the author of the chapter on machine learning (ML), Alan Darnell, “Not every librarian needs to be an expert in ML or to become a data scientist, but it will be in our best interests…to…expand the scope of our professional practice” (235). New Top Technologies will get library professionals much closer to this goal.
November 22, 2019
This book brings together many technologies being used in libraries, some of these have been around for a while, but sometimes with little implementation in libraries. Each chapter provides a solid basic introduction to a technology or a tool for example linked open data, data visualisation or digital publishing. There is usually a description of how the technology is used in a library as well as how it could be used in a library. There are helpful further references at the end of each chapter. This is a book to dip into, and come back to as it is episodic in style.
I read this as an ebook on the Indyreads platform which is provided by my workplace.
I read this as an ebook on the Indyreads platform which is provided by my workplace.
January 6, 2022
While I am certain this book is filled with much needed information, it is not what I was looking for. There are in depth discussions on topics such as information visualization and data repositories. Helpful for those looking for a deep dive. (I was looking for tech programs staff might use regularly for programming implementation, statistics tracking, etc.)
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June 3, 2019Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews