Community College Library of the Future

Community Colleges have been on my mind lately. We've been talking about eAudiobooks for academic libraries--what content 4 year urban institutions need, what content private suburban/rural colleges might need, and what community colleges might need.

Not surprisingly, we thought all three groups like the idea of eAudiobooks. (We surmised all of this, we did not particularly go hunting for quantitative/qualitative data yet.) Then the question of content came up--and we realized that Community Colleges might stand to be the biggest winner with eAudiobooks in academic libraries thus far.

To make a gross generalization, community colleges typically have a higher population of students who commute, who have full-time jobs/kids/families, and who may not speak English as their native tongue.

For this group, eAudiobooks seemed just about perfect: you can listen to them while you drive, you have have your kids listen to them with you while you cook dinner, maybe you can listen to them at your job! And community colleges, we wondered, may have a propensity to interact with the local community a bit more, too? Possibly.

Anyway, all this brainy thinking made yesterday's Chronicle blog post stand out, the Wired Campus, Community College Library of the Future. Plus it's set in Dayton, Ohio, which means that I could go visit at some point when I am back in Ohio. (Which is set for this week, in fact!)

Speaking of, everyone gearing up for Members Council? There is going to be a live Web cast of the Celebration of the Life of Fred Kilgour on Tuesday. If you're not coming to Dublin, you can still participate! Test your system now--no registration required.