Thing # 15 Future

Rick Anderson has nailed it. His article Away from Icebergs aptly describes the future of libraries in a simple easy to understand way. Three problems with the way we presently provide service are highlighted
"Just in case" collections (those collections we keep just in case someone, somewhere may need them ) make us feel as though we have to row faster and faster, trying to keep up with growing feeling that libraries must have everything.......the fast moving tide of new technology and the every growing and changing wave of resources and the ways we access them. He makes those just in case collections sound very..... well unnecessary, archaic and well just obsolete.

He talks about Reliance of user education. What he means is that, the tools we have now to access our information are too difficult to use. Hours and hours are spent trying figure out how to use the dang thing. If we need extensive training to use it, it is too hard to use and customers surely will go elsewhere to get what they need.
and the last problem with libraries to day is the idea of access to information. In the past customers must come to the library to get what they need. In the future, what they need will come to them. Big changes are coming. think RSS on a global scale.

He alow