libraries beyond the book - hurry up or you may die

One thought is that some of us are worried that librarianship has a very narrow window of opportunity for survival--maybe a decade, maybe more, maybe a little less. It's the kind of discussion we have in cabs, or in late at night at the bar of the conference hotel, or one on one; you may not get a memo at work saying, "Oh by the way, we're running out of time, kthxbye," but there are enough of us who have come to this conclusion to make you stop and think.

OCLC has convincingly demonstrated that most people associate libraries with the paper-based book "brand," and while we can all point to libraries that have successfully extended this branding, I worry that it's a very thin thread to hang by for the long run--particularly for libraries that do not do an absolutely slam-dunk excellent job at this business.

Karen G. Schneider - Sailing on - ALA TechSource blog

Comments

[T Scott]

Earlier today, I posted a related note here.