THE LATEST FROM STEPHEN ABRAM

There have been a few people that didn’t like this article, but I think it’s great. “Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition, Searcher 16(8), September 2008.

He writes, “In 2008 we are seeing the real action in our world of libraries move form the back office to the front desk. We’re moving from a technology-centric strategy to one in which the real needs of our clients must predominate. Aligning technology with user behavior no longer suffices to ensure success. We need to understand, and understand deeply, the role of the library in our end-users’ lives, work, research, and play. This is critical to our long-term success, and failure is not an option.” [emphasis mine]

He supplies 14 possible scenarios for the future of reference. They are enough to get a person thinking—which is what he intended. I especially like #14—“all of the above.”

URL: http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep08/Abram.shtml