Aaron the Librarian

While doing something else at work, came across a SOLINET Planning Committee discussion scenarios(.pdf) and report(.pdf).  As a former employee of a SOLINET library and curious about library management trends person, I clicked through to see what’s on the horizon at the consortia level.

Short-term forecast of what’s happening in libraryland:

• Service model Changing, refocusing on customer service rather than dead-tree repository
• Collection roles Changing to [ just in time / on demand ] instead of just in case
• Staff Transforming to active and service oriented from passive and reacting
• Building Re-purposing to [ multi-purpose / community use ] from dead-tree repository
• Assessment Increasing to better ’splain why the library is needed and what the ROI is for a given community
• Technology [ Control/Timeliness ] to improve services provided and educate community on technology and how to use it

Pages 3-6 of the report(.pdf) detail what the library community should be prepared to learn / know in the next 3-5 years.  The ideas and recommendations are presented with the weight and authority of a Library Consortium, which will hopefully get less-Cluetrained library managers to pay attention and start listening to patrons and staffers who want to move their libraries forward.

Very little of the specifics supplied by the LITA Showcase are listed, but general areas covered by those showcased technologies are mentioned in a broad sense.  The question, as always, is how to get entrenched library interests to accept and apply technologies their changing pieces of librarianship need to move forward and stay relevant to (potential and current) library users?