This is my first real day back at work after Xmas and New Year, and my jury service. I abjectly failed to get writing over the festive break so I am cheating and just directing your attention to a short piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the death of academic libraries. I do sympathise with much of the writer’s analysis, viz. that librarians’ success in embracing the digital has made their print collections and their own activity redundant. I agree with some commenters that he overstates things a little, though by how much remains to be seen.
I think the piece is intended as a wake up call, urging us to start “plotting a realistic path to the future” for library services. That task is very much on my mind right now.
I hope to be back with a proper post later this week.
I hope that next post will take a first stab at the possible direction of the future path for libraries, Frank!
Steffi – not the next post no, but I will put something up on that topic in a few weeks time.
Meanwhile, more apocalyptic stuff in this report of the endearingly titled “Libraries are screwed” talk, which was given by Eli Neiburger at an e-book summit in the US last year. The talk, and further discussion at Eric Hellman’s blog seem to focus on public libraries, but much of what they say about print is true for all libraries.