On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:01:10 -0400, Voros, David <dvoros_at_LCCC.EDU> wrote:
>Well lets look at the source He's an admin from a very distressed California
>system of higher ed. I am afraid he would not fit into the academic world on
>our side of the country.
Not yet maybe, but everybody is looking at the same trends, including here
in Italy. While things *may*be looking up for banks and the world of
finance, nobody thinks that that will translate into changes on the street
for a long, long time. In tough economic times, technical services have
always been the first to be cut since institutions have been loathe to cut
acquisitions budgets (linked too closely to the prestige of the institution)
or reference, circulation, shelving, etc. (i.e. the front end), and would
hit the back end so that the patrons wouldn't complain so much.
But today, use of reference services has dropped significantly, there has
been emphasis for a long time on "access" instead of "ownership" and the
only library statistic I have seen that has gone up significantly other than
use of computers is interlibrary loan. Can that be called a success of a
library? And anyway, if these materials can be gotten electronically, that
is *if* the Google-publisher agreement goes through, I suspect that someone
could get an entire undergraduate education without stepping foot into a
physical library.
I still say that we need to find reasons to "make ourselves relevant in the
new environment" (a phrase that I have heard repeated throughout the years
and apparently coming true in California). I think we can, but we must think
outside the box.
On that happy note...
Jim Weinheimer
Received on Thu Sep 24 2009 - 10:28:31 EDT