A Temporary Place in Time

I don't know that I would categorize the online community or web mania as being temporary, but I did enjoy and for the most part agree with, Dr. Wendy Schultz's article "To a Temporary Place in Time". At first I thought that Dr. Shultz was hesitant to admit the appeal and wide spread use of all things online. But I soon discovered that she is not only open to web use in libraries, she is very up to date on current trends such as the virtual world in SecondLife. The main arugment in her article is that eventually, after the online craze has become so large that librarians are being rated and "judged" so to speak: "Who’s the best librarian avatar? How many Amazon stars has your avatar collected from satisfied customers? This could create librarian “superstars” based on buzz and customer ratings. People will collect librarians rather than books—the ability not just to organise, but also to annotate and compare books and other information sources, from a variety of useful perspectives..." there will be a return to the need for that long forgotten past time of reading, relaxing, enjoying the company of actual people rather than the virtual kind. I don't see this happening any time soon, but I do see that trend coming around just as the trend right now is towards the virtual world. "Into a new world of librarianship" by Micheal Stephens and "To more powerful ways to cooperate" by Chip Nilges are more clinical looks at the changing duties of the typical librarian. Nilges article actually lost me a couple of times in the web jargon he is fond of, but Stephens was a somewhat more useful guide to the evolving demands placed on today's librarian. This demand, or means of gathering information, filtering it, and presenting to someone depending on it, can also be applied to Adult Learning. The needs of Adult Learners are changing because society is changing. Will it be enough to upgrade math, writing, and reading skills? Or will the adult learner also need to know how to communicate and naviage the web? I think that the latter is true. Today's world is becoming increasingly dependent on online information and we would be doing a disservice to our student's by not educating ourselves and in return educating them on the practices and benefits of online know how.