The library will
serve as Camden
County's "gateway
to the world." |
Advice
Based on its successful experience with CamNet, the Camden County
Library has some advice to offer other libraries and communities
that may wish to establish community and library networks:
- Partnership and cooperation are key. Working together with elements
throughout the community is vitally important to the success of
any effort to increase a community's access to electronic information.
- Keep things simple. Sometimes simple ideas are the best ones-and
they are usually the easiest to implement and to find partners
for.
- Don't reinvent the wheel. Many communities have gained experience
building networks, so look around, do your homework, and talk to
people who have done it already.
- Keep focused on training, which should be the first priority.
Good training will enhance the overall use of the system and the
ability of staff to teach others how to use it.
- Take advantage of opportunities. Don't wait for opportunity to
call a second time; it won't. Recognize an opportunity when it
presents itself and take action.
- The driving force should be what the customer--the community--wants
and needs.
- Believe in what you are doing. Someone should provide the vision
and the faith that the job can be accomplished successfully.
- Remember to keep the information "have-nots" in mind and work
them into the overall service elements of the network you are building.
Make sure you reach underrepresented portions of your community.
The Future
In Camden County, the experience of creating and maintaining CamNet
has benefited many people, enhanced education throughout the school
system, and brought the library, schools, and the local cable company
together in a unique partnership based on the desire to get information
into the hands of people who need it the most. It has also had another
dividend, particularly for the Camden County Library: it has made
the library more important to the community as a whole.
Where will the library go from here? It will continue to move toward
fulfilling the goals of its long-range plan and to serve as Camden
County's "gateway to the world." But it must also forge a new plan,
one that deals with the future beyond 1998, incorporates even more
integrally the electronic technology that is changing the role of
libraries in communities, and takes full advantage of the interactive
capabilities of these electronic media. The library is poised to
greet the future. With local partners it has moved steadily to build
a telecommunications infrastructure linking organizations and individuals
across the county. How the library chooses to use these communication
facilities and how well it serves the community in its choices will
determine the place of the library within the community in the coming
years.
This case study was written by the staff of the
Council on Library Resources, and is an excerpt from the publication Public
Libraries, Communities and Technology: Twelve Case Studies,
The Council on Library Resources, c1996. Comments or questions
about this project should be addressed to: The Council on Library
Resources, 1400 16th Street NW, Suite 715, Washington DC, 20036.
Phone (202) 939-3370. Fax (202) 939-3499. Email gsonnema@clir.org.
The Council on Library Resources is a non-profit
operating foundation established in 1956 to look toward the future
on behalf of libraries, address problems experienced by libraries
in the aggregate, and identify innovative solutions. The Council
promotes research, organizes conferences, issues publications,
and manages collaborative projects to bring about significant
changes in its areas of interest. It is supported by grants from
other foundations, and it has recently affiliated with the Commission
on Preservation and Access, an allied organization working to
ensure the preservation of the published and documentary record
in all formats. The Council's current programs are in three areas
important to the future of libraries: developing leadership for
managing new information technologies, analyzing the economics
of information services, and assisting the transition from the
traditional to the digital library.
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