Online Learning Update

July 3, 2018

Public Libraries Have Grown Into eLearning Centers

Filed under: Online Learning News — Ray Schroeder @ 12:12 am

By Henry Kronk, eLearning Inside
For awhile in the late aughts and early ‘10s, public libraries looked like they were in trouble. Budgets were reduced year after year in regions throughout the U.S., leading to fewer resource acquisitions, cuts in staffing, and decreased hours. And, while libraries remained overly popular in the American public mood, in-person usage began to fluctuate. While 53% of Americans 16 and older visited a library sometime in 2012, by 2015, that figure had dropped to 44%. A reasonable person might have guessed that libraries would become obsolete in the digital age. Access to information, once available primarily at the public institutions, is now everywhere via computers and mobile devices. “The internet infiltrated our niche and filled it to bursting,” said Rachel Cobb, a furthering education librarian at the City of Wolverhampton College in the U.K. “We, as [librarians], are no longer extraordinary. As the internet rises, we shrink. We lose who we are.”

Public Libraries Have Grown Into eLearning Centers

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