Future of Libraries

I was reading a discussion over at LISNews by Blake. AN excerpt of his article is below:

"For years I've been on the fence when it comes to our digital future. I've always bought into the assumption that books are here to stay. That libraries will always have a place. That 100 years from now we'll still want to browse the stacks to see what's related. I think I've fallen off that fence, and landed on the side with the digitalists. I've chosen sides based on things I've read from both the crumugednons like Gorman, and the many techno-freaks on the other side. I don't know what this means for the millions of books we hold currently. I don't know what this means for the future of libraries & librarians, nor do I know what, if anything, we can do to ensure we're still around in 20 years, but below I'll share with you why I've moved from fence sitter, to digitalist."

For the rest of the article, click here

I also found Greg's rebuttal interesting:

"As for libraries? I'm starting to get peeved with my profession. For the last 100 years we've let ourselves become trivia kings but aside from just offering a wide selection of reading material, fiction and nonfiction, our primary goal should be offering local information both current and historical. Its not the most glamorous part of the job but it is the most challenging and time consuming. Because of that I think we constantly put it on the backburner. Regardless, it has nothing to do with Google unless we put it up there for Google to search. If libraries disappear it won't be because of the Internet it will because we lost sight of our own purpose."

(Read the rest of the rebuttal.)

It gives one some food for thought. How relevant will libraries continue to be in 20, even 10 years? Something we all need to be mindful of. As the major library organizations and librarians themselves become more political in their activism (more on that later), I fear that the public at large will begin to turn away from the local library.