To the Editor:
From time to time, Cassandras from within and outside the library have warned of its imminent demise. The latest warning comes from Brian T. Sullivan in "Academic Library Autopsy Report, 2050" (The Chronicle, January 2). Here's an alternative vision:
1. Book collections in the cloud: In 2050, students, faculty, and researchers get their content from a variety of electronic resources. Technology and copyright laws have evolved over the 40 years since 2011 to make access easy and effective while protecting authors' and publishers' rights. New forms of digital content are constantly being developed and are immediately in demand by students and faculty doing cutting-edge research. The cost of all this content via subscription is prohibitive, so librarians evaluate, negotiate, and provide efficient access to the best content for their constituents. Librarians remain at the vanguard of the fight to share materials through interlibrary loan and other collaborative programs, so that institutions and communities can continue to serve their users regardless of their ability to pay. In 2050, special-collections and archives librarians have digitized most of the materials in their collections to be easily found and used online. But working with rare books, archives, and artifacts remains an essential component of pedagogy and research in many disciplines. Librarians process and preserve these items, and work with faculty, students and others to use them.
2. Customized discovery (help finding online content): In 2050, a variety of systems provide users with focused, relevant content. As the amount and kinds of content increase, the number of systems to access specialized content increases as well. Librarians evaluate these systems to determine which are best for their users, and explore how systems can be linked to one another and to other campus systems to provide a seamless search experience for users.
3. Online research literacy: In 2050, faculty members have little time to teach information literacy in the classroom. New content is being created, and new access systems are evolving. Being in the content business, librarians keep up with the changes and inform users about the changes relevant to their work. Librarians also provide more-detailed, customized research-consultation services to students and faculty.
4. Library-IT-faculty-student collaboration continues: In 2050, the library has been transformed into a variety of individual and group study and work spaces for students and faculty, and into the headquarters of academic support services. Librarians and information-technology staff work together with users to ensure that they have the content, equipment, and systems they need. Libraries and IT departments collaborate easily within a variety of organizational models that depend on the institution's needs and culture, with the common goal of supporting the academic mission. Each contributes to that goal in a different, equally important way.
5. Seamless help services: In 2050, librarians, working with faculty, IT staff, and others, have developed interrelated, sophisticated processes for answering questions about finding, accessing, and using content. These processes have been designed to be seamless to the user. As much as possible, physical and virtual spaces have been developed to minimize the need to answer simple directional questions. In such a rich, complex universe of content, however, users will inevitably have questions no matter how well structured the content. Librarians answer those questions in a variety of ways—using online guides and the latest communication applications to remain accessible to users.
6. Commitment to high-quality, fiscally responsible services: In 2050, economics is of course a limiting factor in libraries, as it is elsewhere in academia. But there continue to be many faculty members, students, administrators, IT staff, and (yes) librarians who are committed to producing work of high quality while keeping within financial and other limits. Librarians are dedicated to the protection of academic freedom, equitable access to content, and the preservation of intellectual and cultural resources. In close consultation with faculty, students, and others, librarians have developed effective, popular programs that teach students how to navigate the complex information environment.
Mr. Sullivan ends his article by stating that librarians "planted the seeds of their own destruction and are responsible for their own downfall," and he implies that this was in part by participating in the digitization of print materials and the development of a variety of online, unmediated services. But librarians should not be resisting these efforts to increase and enhance access to content—a central value of our profession is to make content as discoverable and accessible as possible to as many people as possible.
And in leading these efforts, we are not making our professional obsolete. Librarians in 2050 will be doing the same thing we are doing now—making content accessible to our users. We will be doing this very differently, of course, just as we are doing things very differently now than we did in 1960. The library will look and operate differently, and perhaps provide a different kind of experience for students and faculty. But the library's end is a long way off.
Patricia A. Tully
University Librarian
Wesleyan University
Middletown, Conn.
Comments
1. orowans - January 25, 2011 at 08:10 am
Thank you for expressing, very well, the reaction of many of us to the doom-and-gloom article about libraries!
Sue Martin
Former University Librarian, Georgetown University (retired)
2. librfun - January 25, 2011 at 08:35 am
Amen! If I had a dollar for the doom and gloom articles that are frequently put out there, I'd have a nice little nest egg...I too see us progressing in this direction...not quite sure why others don't...
3. bfrank1 - January 25, 2011 at 09:03 am
Well, clearly this person knows what librarians actually do, and why. Maybe if more library administrators understood that, the conversations in conference rooms and planning meetings would be more reality based.
4. szietz - January 25, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Articles and presentations about the future of libraries tend to elicit defensive arguements from the library community. That is quite understandable in that no two of us have quite the same vision. A wrong-headed or badly-motivated article can even be threatening to librarians' well being.
Most of us share the notion that as libraries today are not what they were 20 years ago, and libraries 20 years ago are not what they were 50 years before, libraries in 20 or 50 years will not be what they are today. On much more than that, we are not in agreement.
Many library functions and departments appear to becoming more autonomous, relying less on each other for success. Perhaps, some of these functions will morph into larger groups of functions presently outside the library, and the composit that results won't be in the library anymore. Perhaps. If Ms. Tully's vision for special collections touched on in number 1 of her letter were to come true, special collections would be a radically different department than it is now. However, I see a continued but different role for special collections that is much different from hers.
The long view is by nature highly theoretical. Is this vision useful? Is it accurate? Can it be accurate? I believe that the process of envisioning the future is essential. I also believe that it cannot, by its very nature, be accurate: how can you describe something that doesn't exist outside your own mind, and expect your description to be acceptable to everyone? Completely acceptable to anyone? At the same time, we are obligated to project far into the future in order to plan for the immediate future -- next week, next month, next year. I am left with two observations: libraries have been by their natures weighty creatures, in that the structure of the library -- a place with books, desks, and other capital goods and facilities -- is built over a long period of time and traditionally has become better with time; I've also noticed that strategic plans are of shorter duration now than in the past -- the five-year plan is now the two- or three-year plan.
It would seem that if we accept the notion that the academic library is a vital university support department, we might want to look more closely at the anticipated changes in the university's role, mission, and makeup and relate those changes to the roles and functions of the library. For example, just the changes in the last few years in the expectations and academic preparation of incoming freshmen have been noteworthy and have had an affect on libraries, learning, and education. In 20 years, I project that most college freshmen will have learned to read from some sort of digital device and come from an environment that is saturated with "the digital" (natural disaster, world wars, drought, famine and other disasters not being taken into account in my prediction); talking books that teach children how to read are already quite widespread.
One thing we can count on, however, as we plan for the future, it is unreasonable for either the university or the library to anticipate "business as usual."
Stephen Zietz,
Head Special Collections and Archives
GSU
5. jwr12 - January 25, 2011 at 11:51 pm
I have to say that with all due respect -- and as a supporter of libraries and research libraries among them -- I found this letter rather dreary and depressing. There's a lot of library management speak -- seamless search experience this and information literacy about content discovery that -- but little that suggests a real and enduring mission for libraries themselves. Instead, most of the functions described above would seem to more naturally be folded either into the teaching mission of regular departments, or into the training provided by IT and Informatics programs. There is no rationale for either the physical space of the library or (really) for the physical technology of books articulated here. I realize that for some that's not a problem. They've already bought the idea that books are so yesterday. But beneath all the planning speak, I'm terrified there's no real there there. There seems to be nothing here that people won't be training themselves to do within the disciplines; and no rational for saving what is enduring about libraries: their collections and their spaces.
6. more_cowbell - January 26, 2011 at 12:12 pm
I can undertsand why some would be feeling a bit defensive after reading the "Autopsy Report." But it is quite naieve to think that the end of the library as an physical institution will not acutely impact the work of librarians. First, there will be fewer need for librarians in the future. Second, those positions that are left will increasingly be related more to IT than library science. Unless a library science education changes, and changes quickly, I can see IT degree graduates with some kind of minor specialty in online database, library webpage design etc. becoming more useful than librarians with a traditional MLS. There may be a few reference positions left in the future, but far, far fewer than now or in the past.
This article also conveniently ignores the fact that many of the traditional arms of library science - cataloguing, technical services, acquisitions - will become redundant. How that is not change is beyond me...
7. libct - January 27, 2011 at 09:17 am
To jwr12: I'm sorry you found my letter dreary--as a library administrator, it is hard for me not to couch my thoughts in management speak! But my last paragraph (I think!) conveys the 'there' that I intended to convey. The purpose of academic libraries is to provide access to content that students and faculty need for their assignments, teaching, research and general enrichment. Since so much content is becoming electronic, the physical, print collections will become less central to library users in the coming decades. (The need for content management, however, will continue.) I think you're right about library spaces--there are few other places on campus where 'quiet' is the norm--and the importance of providing this kind of space will continue.
To more_cowbell: Absolutely the conversion of most content to an electronic format will significantly impact the work of librarians. But I don't think this will necessarily mean that there will be less work for librarians, just different ways of working. Because of the importance of technology as a tool for library resources and services, librarians have an increasing expertise in technology. But the librarian's work of providing, managing access, and guiding users to content has not diminished with the conversion to digital,and it remains distinct from the work done in IT. The librarian's job has become more complex as more kinds of information (statistical data, images, video, audio) are digitized, and there are more options for access. It is a mistake to think that because the user's experience of finding and getting to content is easier (we hope!), there is less work involved in making this so. Although it would be great for online content to be so well-structured that users could find what they needed quickly and without guidance, we're just not there yet--or for the foreseeable future. Pat Tully
8. phdconnect - January 28, 2011 at 08:56 am
Kudos
If the rest of universities reinvented themselves the way that libraries have had to - we would all be very well off.
Rick Friedman
President
ScholarlyHires.com
9. shayovich1 - January 29, 2011 at 03:41 am
hello..i can say you are the personwho knows what exctly library is.its really like treasure.where its upto you how much amount you can gatthered.thats the thing i have learned from-http://www.judithbassler.com/blog/library-%E2%80%93-place-of-education.html
10. bgthetb - February 05, 2011 at 12:32 pm
I think there's a factor at play here that librarians tend to overlook. When I started out as a professional librarian in 1975, the library was pretty much the only game in town when it came to locating information. A home *may* have had a dictionary and encyclopedia, but the library had the market cornered when it came to information resources.
That's no longer the case, what with Google, Wikipedia, et al. Sure, librarians can usually come up with better information than someone doing "self-service" research. But the "self-service" searcher often finds information that is "good enough" for his/her purposes.
I worry that librarians subconsciously carry the "only game in town" mentality while planning for a future where this will be less and less true.