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« on: April 24, 2017, 12:23:30 AM »
A lot of people now believe that physical media (such as CDs and DVDs/BDs) have gone the way of the dinosaur. This fiction is being promoted by some huge corporate media megaliths that want you to get rid of anything you have in the way of physical media and just sign up for subscription services that you'll pay for for the rest of your life.
Anything that is not available via some kind of streaming or online access could just as well not exist for a lot of people.
The article on the Collinsport Historical Society about some selected DS DVD sets being streamed by public libraries via a protocol called HOOPLA was interesting. Part of the problem with this is that a lot of the people who think physical media went out the window circa 2005 also think that public libraries are on the way into the dustbin of history. Most don't even know where their local library is or how to go about getting a library card (I imagine you can do it online now but I don't know--I'm sure it varies in different states and systems).
As a librarian who works in technical services, which involves acquiring and cataloguing resources, the attitudes and trends that the top leaders in the profession are focusing on are extremely frustrating. In all fairness, those of us involved in "information management" or "metadata management" (just plain old librarianship no longer exists) are constantly bombarded with requests to learn about the hot new platform/protocol/service/space what have you... everything to do with information and media is now relentlessly driven by non-stop innovation because it's all about making people upgrade to the latest, shiniest new product. The top people have to manage all this and try to plan for a future where we're constantly being given new information about what libraries will look like and what kind of services we will be expected to provide.
Sorry for the digression. As I said, I thank God Herself I own the DS DVDs!
G.