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Director's Reflections... A Crystal Ball: Cloudy or Clear?
The essential role of library leaders is, first, to predict how information will be organized and accessed in the future, and, second, to develop strategies to get from where we are to where we want to be. One of the more interesting predictive reports about the future of libraries was published recently by Thomas Frey, executive director of the DaVinci Institute, a non-profit futurist think tank in Longmont, Colo.1 According to Frey, libraries through the ages have been great storehouses of information containing "the fundamental building blocks of information for all humanity." Today, however, information that was once scarce and difficult to find, is now vast and readily available online. Below are listed the report’s ten key trends that will impact library development in the future. How many match your predictions? Trend #1 - Communication systems are continually changing how people access information. From the invention of the telegraph in 1844, through the development of the World Wide Web, online search engines, Web browsers, Google and meta-searching in recent years, the pace of change is accelerating. We still don’t know what will be the "ultimate form" of communication. Trend #2 - All technology ends. All technologies commonly used today will be replaced by something new. Media formats are changing. "Every device, tool, piece of hardware, equipment, and technology that we are using today will go away, and be replaced by something else. That something else will be faster, smarter, cheaper, more capable, more durable, work better, and look cooler than anything we have today." Trend #3 - We haven’t yet reached the ultimate small particle of storage. But soon. When we find the "ultimate small storage particle," we can develop better standards for permanent information storage, and more opportunities for better “information experiences” for library users. Trend #4 - Search technology will become increasingly more complicated. Today’s searches based primarily on text will expand to include images and media with attributes such as texture, mass, tone, speed, volume, color and others. Trend #5 - Time compression is changing the lifestyle of library patrons. Life is faster, and the timeframe for delivering information is shrinking. Trend #6 - Over time, we will be transitioning to a verbal society. Keyboards as the primary interface between people and electronic information will fade away. We will shift from written to primarily verbal information exchange. Trend #7 - The demand for global information is growing exponentially. We need to understand other societies, cultures, systems and languages. Trend #8 - The stage is being set for a new era of global systems. The Internet is already a global information system. Other international systems, such as global ethical standards and global intellectual property agreements, will emerge. Libraries play a key role by archiving and disseminating the basic units of information for these systems to develop. Libraries themselves will be a global system. Trend #9 - We are transitioning from a product-based economy to an experience-based economy. Reflecting the needs of an increasingly mobile society, users will experience the library in new and unusual formats. Books and journals themselves will change from "words on a page" to novel digital manifestations of information. Trend #10 - Libraries will transition from a center of information to a center of culture. Libraries will expand beyond repositories of facts and information to cultural centers and gathering places reflecting the identity and personality of their unique constituencies. At HSLS, our crystal ball is sometimes clear and sometimes cloudy, but our constant goal is to deliver cutting-edge information technology and services to our users. ________ |
