Some Assumptions about Libraries

By Barbara Fister. Joshua Kim started the year off with a challenge to examine our assumptions. Here are some of mine about the purpose and nature of academic libraries, in no particular order.
Learning how (and why) to explore ideas independently is an important goal of higher education, and libraries enable and inspire that kind of learning. A corollary to that assumption is that when we explore ideas, we are willing to have the information we encounter change our minds. An enigma wrapped inside this corollary to an assumption is the notion that people want to have their minds changed. Wayne Bivens-Tatum questions that notion usefully, suggesting information literacy is an "unnatural" activity. Read more...