The iSchool at Drexel, College of Information Science and Technology, will host the lecture "Evaluating Digital Libraries in the Digital Age" by Dr. Paul Kantor, Rutgers University, on Thursday, February 25, 2010, at 12:30 p.m. in room 014, Rush Building (30 N. 33rd Street), Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. 

This talk critically reviews the fundamental principles that are involved in evaluating libraries, emphasizing their functional relationship to the users and to the materials that they access. This functional perspective helps to move measurements and principles across the seismic change from the book-centered library, through the journal-centered library, and to the electronic library or digital library. The basic economic principles of value to the organization, value to the user, and value to society remain the same. The details of how these values are realized, and how their impacts are measured must necessarily change. The speaker closes with a discussion of the enormous potential for much better evaluation, as the library user evolves into a kind of digital native, who is far more comfortable interacting with the library and with the evaluation effort through electronic media.

The work described here has been supported by a variety of organizations, particularly the Council on Library and Information Resources, The National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

This lecture is part of The iSchool at Drexel Colloquium Series. 

For more information, visit http://www.ischool.drexel.edu or contact Robert Allen, PhD, at [log in to unmask]