Super- Evolution and the Media Center: Outdoing the Dinosaurs

For my initial post on this blog, I would like to comment on my experience as a public librarian ( which I was for 23 years) and as a school media specialist (2008- 2009 will be my eighth year). When I began working in a small public library, disco was king and Elvis was recently deceased. My first task was to help throw away the old card catalog and bring in the new microfiche machines. Eventually, we added microfiche readers for newspaper research. In the mid 1990's we added our first true OPAC catalog and, soon after, Internet connections. We added collections of video tapes and books on tape along the way. The Internet, more than any other technology, changed how our public library operated and how with served our patrons . We had become, without a change of name, a media center.
School libraries had already adopted the name change to media centers by the time I shifted careers in 2000. With a focused goal of serving a very specific purpose - the school curriculum - school libraries tended, I believe, to adopt to change rather quickly. The first species of media center, to use an evolutionary metaphor, might be called media center papyrii, or the media center of the printed page. The media center evolved into a new species just as disco died in the early 1980's. Call that media center the media center divisii, the media center of diversity, with an ability to incorporate print, film, and electronic formats into its collection. With the deep, and rapid spread of newest technologies - of which this blog is an example - the media center is approaching its third transformation within a single generation. The newest species might be called the media center collaboratus, the media center for collaboration and creation , with a focus on providing direction and leadership on how to cause technology integration to truly happen in each school. I like to believe that each previous species is not dead. We add function rather than detract it. We still offer books and printed material; we still keep many other forms of media and we will create a niche for ourselves as T.I. collaborators as well.