I agree with Brian Stamper. I don't subscribe to the "gloom and doom, librarianship is dying" philosophy. After all, people are still investing many dollars in building new physical library buildings. And heck, just the other day, the Simpson family donated $5 million to the University of Illinois to create an endowed chair position for the dean of libraries. See: http://www.library.illinois.edu/news/investiture.html.
But I am also very uncomfortable with librarian complacency. You all know what I mean. Librarians are very fond of saying things like "the more complex the web gets, the more valued librarians' skills will be." But we rarely offer sound evidence to support such platitudes.
Technological advances like Wolfram Alpha seem like they might pose threats to librarians. But I think the bigger threat to libraries comes from within...from complacent librarians.
Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN
--- On Mon, 5/4/09, Brian Stamper <stamper.10_at_OSU.EDU> wrote:
From: Brian Stamper <stamper.10_at_OSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: [NGC4LIB] Another nail in the coffin
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Date: Monday, May 4, 2009, 11:32 AM
On Mon, 04 May 2009 10:18:33 -0400, Jonathan Rochkind <rochkind_at_jhu.edu>
wrote:
> What is your point, Alex? How can this discussion help us serve our users
better?
>
> Are you suggesting that all of us reading this should just quit our jobs
and go work somewhere other than a library now, and libraries should disolve
themselves?
>
> And that's useful for us to discuss here why?
> ________________________________________
Thank you, Jonathan!
I'm a library newbie, but I'm already so sick of seeing these gloom and
doom, librarianship is dying type of posts. Why should new information discovery
tools be viewed as being *outside* of librarianship? If this thing is truly
useful, doesn't it *enhance* our abilities, rather than replace them?
Doesn't the realm of librarianship *expand* to include these new tools and
techniques, rather than shrink out of their way? If it does really mean a few
less reference desk questions (and that 90% figure comes from where now?),
doesn't that just free up our time to assist in more difficult research?
Bring up a new tool here for discussion, fantastic. Then go on to say that it
means obsoletion for libraries, or call it "another nail in the
coffin", well that's just trolling for flames, in my newbie opinion.
Brian Stamper
Received on Mon May 04 2009 - 23:38:56 EDT