New librarians excited by the open future
Elizabeth Breakstone, Librarians Can Look Forward to an Exhilarating Future, Chronicle of Higher Education, September 30, 2005 (accessible only to subscribers). Excerpt:
I expect my fellow librarians to be excited by changes that make information more accessible. But when I read articles about the future of the library, I often sense fear and anxiety rather than anticipation and enthusiasm. The panic that permeates public discussions about the future of libraries is absent when I speak with my friends from graduate school and my colleagues. Unfortunately, few people outside the field hear our perspective….I see optimistic conversations in library-related blogs and publications, but when I read articles that reach the general public, I groan. Take Michael Gorman, now president of the American Library Association, commenting in The Chronicle earlier this year about Google’s plan to put library books online: “They say they’re digitizing books, but they’re really not, they’re atomizing them. In other words, they’re reducing books to a collection of paragraphs and sentences which, taken out of context, have virtually no meaning.”…Most of us know that Google’s digitization project, the open-access movement, the proliferation of blogs, and other recent developments increase both the availability of information and the challenge of finding what’s relevant. The more sources that are available, the more important it is to be able to interpret and evaluate them. In understanding and exploring technological changes, librarians not only participate in the information revolution but help direct its course….Although I don’t fear technology and its impact on the library’s future, I do have some concerns. I worry about the economics of scholarly communication — the combination of plummeting library budgets and skyrocketing journal and database prices. I fear that leasing digital collections of material, rather than owning them, will leave librarians dependent on the long-term benevolence of corporations….When I think about the library that I’ll be working in 30 years from now (right before I retire, if all goes according to plan), I have no idea what my work environment will look like. But when I speak with friends who are also new in the field, I sense excitement and empowerment rather than anxiety. Like me, they find it exhilarating to work in a profession with such an open future — an open future, mind you, that will be shaped by us.
