Library Perspectives
This week’s Chronicle of Higher Education has an intriguing article where eight academic librarians in their 20s and 30s responded to questions about their impressions of libraries today and what the future might hold. At the same time that libraries are facing new challenges related to technology, information literacy and shrinking budgets, baby boomer librarians such as myself are starting to retire and being replaced with Gen Xers and Net Genners. Here’s what some of our younger librarian colleagues are saying:
The core values of libraries are will remain the same, as the physical and virtual services will change and complement each other. The book isn’t likely to go away and reference services are likely to stay, although the venue is changing to include digital and media services. Librarians will coexist and even complement the “amagoogle” information world that so many have embraced. Creation of new ideas is expanding well beyond text to include a wide variety of digital media. (The above referenced article includes links to audio clips of the librarian responses.) A Library/Information Science is still important in the profession, but so is the need for a broad and deep understanding of IT.
After reading the article and listening to the librarian responses, I didn’t feel the essence of what they had to say was so very different than my own perspectives on libraries and their future — or that of fellow baby boomer librarians who have evolved with libraries and their changing environments.