CLA 2007 and preconf in St. John's

This is the best presentation description I've read in a long time

Rick Anderson is convinced that the future of libraries will be a dismal one if we don't let go of certain cherished assumptions and traditional mindsets and realign our thinking in some radical and far-reaching ways. He likens library patrons to a river, and the traditional library to an expensive, unwieldy and, ultimately, fatally flawed system of dams and levies designed to force patrons in unnatural directions, a system that is already cracked and leaking and threatens to give way entirely. Among the topics he addresses are:

    * How the OPAC is destroying the library profession
    * Why most serials management tasks are a waste of time
    * Why it's better to give a man a fish than to teach a man to fish
    * Why we should stop thinking like good librarians and start thinking like bad patrons

CLA 2007 TSIG-SIG preconference - May 23, 2007 - Keynote - Restructuring Our Thinking: New Mindsets for Librarianship in a Radically Changed Information Environment

The main CLA 2007 conference site is

http://www.cla.ca/conference/2007/

PS that's Canadian Libraries, not Californian