how digital convergence in mobile devices facilitate participatory culture in libraries

libraries are information centers that provide various types of information services to the general public depending on their immediate information needs. the appropriate defination for the term convergence, is the degree to which participants in a communication posses control and exchange role in a mutual discourse.
mobile devices facilitate participatory culture in libraries in the following ways:

1. enhances effective interraction between the library and the clients. this is so becourse of the timely and immediate respond and feedback of the mobile device.
2. since its mobile device, it enables the clients and library to be interconnected any time any where as long as their is a network that binds them.
3. it acts as a tool provide current information and update users of the libraries current arrivals without wasting the users time in information searching.
4. through the network and online services, the mobile devices are used to access the libraries database or e-books and other electronic information resources.
5. digital convergence in mobile devices eases the compexity in dealing with users of different kind of information needs thus leads to increased participation
6. facilitates faster engagements and building a mutual relationship between the library and the customers.
7. convergence will have a positive influence on customers perception regarding the services offered
8.  leads to social construction, sharing of knowledge and participation in a collaborative activities.

 New media and expansion of reader advisory services in reader development programmes

new media research has indicated several new media features concerning the internet and the web that librarians can use to their advantage. one of these advantages is expanding on the library reader advisory service in reader development programmes which can benefit scholars and academicians on different on different programs especially those in higher institutions of learning. The web is a hypertextual media environment – all web sites are part of a global media environment, a global publicity. Local web communication is already a global communication. The web interface is also a multimedia interface, and it gives the possibility of interactive, dialogic communication. Further web sites are “remediations” of media types and genres from other media. These features must be considered when analysing library web sites, and they must be considered in the education of librarians in the future. The Danish library web site litteratursiden.dk is used to demonstrate how a literary library web site may use the web as a medium, and how new skills are needed and developed. The site gives access to the fiction of library catalogues, but at the same time it is a literary magazine with news, essays and recommendations. The librarians operate in two kinds of space – the library space and the literary public space. The addressee is both the library patron and the common reader. This duplicity may be seen as an expansion of the reader advisory service and may be compared with similar advisory services in reader development programmes.

Digitised library resources

Libraries are expensive and the costs can be attributed to three main areas (Arms 2000): facilities (including buildings), library staff and library materials. Library materials that were previously available only in hard copy at considerable expense are increasingly offered in digital form, sometimes free. Digital resources require computers and networks, but are relatively inexpensive once purchased or assembled, with many cost-reducing advantages such as elimination of the need to purchase duplicate copies. They cannot easily get damaged or lost: digital resources such as texts, articles and slide presentations may be tracked for usage statistics and are not as labour-intensive to maintain as their hard copy counterparts. For instance there is no need for re-shelving or repairs and these materials can be accessed at any time by multiple users. Several economic models can be used to describe the provision of digitised resources.

They may be provided free and costs of provision
recouped through advertising throughout the access process or through banners alongside the text. Costs may be covered by external support from an institution like a university or foundation that supports the access. In a subscription model, the user pays a periodic fee and some of the costs are returned to the creator. In fee-per-use, the user pays only for the period or amount of use required. For libraries, online digital resources represent a cost saving. With online access to digital text, the overheads for libraries are reduced and a distillation of value occurs through fully utilising network access to the library. Lynch (2003) suggests that the digital revolution allows ‘…exploring more transformative new uses of the digital medium’. A manifestation of this is the creation of e-reserves in university libraries: Monash University in Victoria ‘has students on six Australian and two overseas campuses, and distance education students who access digitised material in over 120 countries…Some indication of the success of the digitisation of readings and reserve material is the fact that there are approximately 30 000 accesses per week to the library’s image server’ (Harboe-Ree, Sabto and Treloar 2003).
https://www.alia.org.au/about-alia/awards-and-grants/325/library-technician-research-award/previous-recipients-library-technician-research-award
 how to digitise library collections https://www.nla.gov.au/digitisation

 Library transformation through use of new media
even just in terms of available information, the library of today is a very different place from the library of 50 years ago. Knowledge has developed and life has become more complex, and the subject matter in the books available for checkout has changed to reflect the times. In other words, libraries have always stayed current by updating their inventory of reading materials.

For years now, people of all ages have grown accustomed to consuming text through the screens of tablet computers and e-readers. Receiving information through a high-resolution touch screen must be second-nature for students who are younger than the iPod Touch.

Using digital storage and display technology, students could check out whole sections of the library at a time and perform rich, detailed search functions on hundreds of books at once. Circulation desks would only need a few boxes of tablet devices students to be able to use familiar modes of media to experience the depth of knowledge that libraries have to offer. What’s more, online schools could make use of digitally archived material just as easily as traditional campuses. digital storage of information materials has also lightened the duty of the librarian making him or her able to perform hhis or her task to the best of their level.

 

New media and library participatory culture in libraries. 

Libraries are often regarded as the cultural and learning hub of their communities. In order to
deepen community engagement and social inclusion, libraries are adopting new technologies to facilitate a participatory and learning culture.

Librarians are venturing into the mobile app world to raise their libraries’ profiles and to increase the discover ability of their collections in ways that are more engaging than was possible in the past. This often involves representing the library buildings, facilities and collections both physical and digital, to create and promote the library’s identity. Photo based platforms like Instagram and History Pin are being used to enhance the discover ability of libraries’ archival image collections

Libraries have always been places that people go to for information, but, with the explosion of mobile

technology, librarians expect information to come to them. People today are tied to the mobile phone as the center of their information ecosystem, and more and more these phones are providing an interface to nearly all of their informational needs

One of the ways Libraries in the networked world cope  is through the use of social media, in particular Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flick to be able to connect to their patrons

For example : The New York Public Library used Instagram for a Favorite Authors Knock-out
competition, wherein the community was invited to compare two authors and indicate their
preferred author.

 

Convergence and Information Centers

Information centers are often regarded as the cultural and learning hub of their communities. In order to
deepen community engagement and social inclusion, libraries are adopting new
technologies to facilitate a participatory and learning culture.

A variety of platforms are used for the purpose of communicating and providing access to users and there communities at large. The typical gadgets that is the smartphone or tablet now incorporates digital technologies such as Geo-location, audio, video, photo, and web technologies. Bringing all of these technologies into a single device has enabled the development of apps such as Instagram, HistoryPin and Sound Cloud. It has also changed the way users engage with established social networks such as Facebook
and Twitter, and photo-sharing sites such as Flickr.  

Users have the ability to create and share content on an unprecedented scale from any accessible WiFi or mobile phone network. Libraries are embracing these technology-rich apps to interact with their customers in many different ways. 

For example, HistoryPin allows libraries to share their archival collections connecting images with physical space through the use of the HistoryPin GPS app. HistoryPin also facilitates online social interaction where users are invited to share comments or memories about pictures and contribute their own photos to
match old images.

Benefits of using these technologies are

1.  Increased discoverability of library collections can be achieved through creative leverage of established and emerging converged media platforms, thereby increasing the value of library collections to the community. 
2.  Libraries can continue to evolve as transparent, engaged, responsive cultural organizations through the principles of participatory culture, by going beyond the role of trainer to become an active participant.
3. Libraries can enhance connections and must seek more meaningful participation with online communities through opportunities presented in the converged media environment.

 Technology change and the advantage it offers to libraries.

Technology change is affecting basic social structures in a way that a great media research scholar Manuel Castells has described beautifully in his work on “networked society.” The new digital ecosystem has changed social networks, the basic structure of our social interactions.

It has changed the composition of social networks. It has changed the way people use their social networks to navigate their lives. And it has increased the importance of social networks as people use them to make sense of the world.

And this new ecosystem changes the way organizations such as libraries can be parts of social networks.  libraries have always been informal parts of people’s social worlds as they help patrons solve problems and make decisions. But this is even more clear now because libraries can be “nodes” or “friends” in networks thanks to they way libraries help people connect to important, useful information and, these days, help people learn how to become media makers themselves.

the media ecosystem  change has benefited libraries in the following ways:

(a) Social networks-  Some 57% of adults who are internet users and 73% of teenagers use these kinds of sites. They are sharing information about their lives, joining political causes, and passing along other media to each other through social networking sites.scholars and lerners from different institutions pass information to each other through social media networks such as facebook, skype and MySpace. libraries can use these sites as platforms to sell their collections and reach a wide range of readers.

(b) sharing of photographs- people share material online through photographs. Billions and billions of pictures are displayed on social network sites and photo-sharing sites. libraries can become more connected with their users as they post photo albums that detail events and collections in their libraries. this keep the whole lot of readers and the library as a small interconnected village that can easily access information. 

(c) blogs- people can collaborate and create content on blogs. libraries can collectively create an eye-catching blog as well as one that grabs the attention of readers. through this blog, they can share detailed information about their library such as the location of the library, the materials in its collection, opening and closing hours and how readers can reach them. Through this, readers can have a better understanding of the library and visit the library if interested.