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The future of academic libraries
The recently released 2010 top ten trends in academic libraries by ACRL basically holds no surprises. To me the basic trend is clear, the shift from print to electronic/online resources is slowly but surely beginning to tell (Yes, I know this has being predicted many times in the past).
In the domain of journals, the battle has long being settled on the side of online journals. Even skimirches like Nature Publishing Group versus University of California are unlikely to change this but might instead further push us towards Open access. On the ebooks front, things are more murky. On top of uncertainties about formats, DRM etc, more importantly as pointed out by many including Tim Spalding of LibraryThing, ebooks are bad for libraries because libraries lose the right of First-sale Doctrine, they have to pay for each use of the ebook as opposed to buying only one physical copy and having it used multiple times.
That said, I have no doubt that eventually (where eventually could mean 10-20 years), the shift for books will occur as well.
" Our response was The (________) Commons. Fill in the blank with one of these terms: Learning, Information, Scholarly, Library, Computer, Technology, or Intellectual. Essentially we saw an infusion of computers (with productivity software) and cafes (big picture, buildings allowing food, drink, and conversation) along with a mix of casual, quiet, and collaborative workspaces that led to a boom for academic libraries."
That said, I have no doubt that eventually (where eventually could mean 10-20 years), the shift for books will occur as well.
In any case, despite strong opposition from professors and users, many libraries such as Syracuse U. Library and Standford library are preparing for a bookless library, where books are stored in a remote location but can be quickly displayed to the user on demand.
Combined with recent trends toward mobile computing, demands for impact accounting and shrinking budget, the old bugbear about the fate of "physical libraries" rears its head again. Why should we retain expensive and prime space for a library when everything will soon be online and users don't have to come here anyway? In a world where users don't need to access library resources from the physical library, is there any reason for physical libraires to exist?
The Chronicle's provocatively titled article, If Libraries Remove Computers, Will Anyone Come? in April, highlights a blog post by The Ubiquitous Librarian (Brian Mathews) perfectly captures the fear.
Underlying this question is also the elephant in the room, if there are no physical libraries, do we need librarians?
As I see it, libraries are responding in 3 ways.
1. Radically change the library space to entice users to visit the library for other reasons even though they can access the information resources anywhere (Library as a collaborative learning space)
2. Move physically to where our users are to serve them (Embedded librarians movement)
3. Move virtually to where our users are to serve them (Library 2.0/ digital or virtual outreach/reference)
Library as a collaborative learning space
Firstly as pointed out by the blog post, pointed to in the Chronicle's article, libraries can try to entice users to come by adding computers or creating collaborative spaces.
" Our response was The (________) Commons. Fill in the blank with one of these terms: Learning, Information, Scholarly, Library, Computer, Technology, or Intellectual. Essentially we saw an infusion of computers (with productivity software) and cafes (big picture, buildings allowing food, drink, and conversation) along with a mix of casual, quiet, and collaborative workspaces that led to a boom for academic libraries."
I''m not familiar with the literature in this area, but I believe this school of thought which began circa 1995 and is still going strong basically, tries to entice users to visit the library by changing the library into a place that is conductive for studying/learning/research with specially designed furnitures, smartboards or recently supporting tablets or even more advanced gadgets like augmented reality enhanced projectors etc.
Embedded librarians movement
Another school of thought, basically goes under the heading of "embedded librarians" (the earliest paper I can find so far is 2005), which basically advocates librarians leaving the library and be "embedded" in academic departments. Typically they co-teach classes, have offices in the academic departments, and/or are valued team members in research teams.
Brought to it's logical conclusion, we have the following stated goal at the Welch Medical Library
"By 2012 we do expect to be out of the building."
The idea here seems to be , why fight the change? Let the physical library disappear, instead let's go to where the users are and sat up shop there!
Of course, "Library has collaborative spaces" and "embedded librarians" are not necessarily mutually exclusive (except in the case of the extreme version of the later) , so libraries can do both.
Digital/Virtual Outreach or Reference
It strikes me that the current trend towards library 2.0, at least the outreach part - where librarians tries to be where our users are in virtual space (via Instant Messenging, Twitter, Facebook etc) , will put us in good stead in the future where users no longer visit the physical library.
Already, in some libraries, the number of questions via digital reference already outstrips physical questions.
It's no coincidence that some of the best practitioners of library 2.0 such as Meredith Farkas served in libraries which have a large number of distance learning students.
In the future if users no longer physically visit the library, they are effectively distance learning students anyway, so outreach and services has to be provided virtually including guidance.
Skills needed to survive, nay thrive!
Assuming my analysis above is close to correct, it points to skill sets needed for librarians.
The first requires a fairly unique skill set, i doubt few librarians will be called upon to redesign the library space more than once or twice in their careers and most probably will not be involved.
The second requires subject knowledge, knowledge of research methodology etc.
The third requires knowledge & familiarity with new channels of communications, familiarity with where the users are online and how to communicate effectively on those channels.
