Using Technology To Extend Sustaining Services

In several of my recent posts I have been discussing library innovation. One of my concerns is that libraries may be using technology to simply sustain
existing and traditional services rather than using it to innovate and create new services.

This morning I came across this photo on the Engadget site. I feel this picture may symbolize the approach many libraries take towards innovation. Here we have this great new technology that has a potential to change the way we access content, yet one must use a sustaining technology to interface with it.

This picture is actually backwards if one wants to accurately depict the approach many libraries are taking towards innovation. There should be an old Bell dial phone with an Ipod click wheel interface. Then the user would be using a new technology to access a sustaining service.