POWER USERS

摘要

What does it take for an average patron to find his way around your library? How easy is it to find a cookbook, or a PC, or a video on goldfish care for kids? In a society that jealously guards its time, our job—if libraries are to remain relevant—is to get patrons in the door and in front of the materials they want quickly and easily. Libraries face pressing obstacles in organizing their vast array of resources. Ever-growing inventory coupled with patron expectations that libraries will have "everything" put shelf and floor space at a premium. Buildings that are historic or sentimental to their communities, cramped and out-of-date, are fixed footprints that are difficult to stretch to accommodate new materials, new media, and new services.