Tomorrow's libraries: more than a modular telephone jack, less than a complete revolution— Perspectives of a provocateur
| Published date | 01 April 1992 |
| Pages | 39-50 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb047863 |
| Date | 01 April 1992 |
| Author | John Kountz |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
TOMORROW'S
LIBRARIES: MORE THAN A MODULAR
TELEPHONE
JACK,
LESS
THAN A COMPLETE
REVOLUTION—PERSPECTIVES
OF A
PROVOCATEUR
John
Kountz
with a sidebar by Jim Danbury
BACKGROUND
The annual operating costs for traditional
libraries can be shown to be greater than the
cost to distributing a portable computer and
related sources of electronic information to each
library user in the academic environment. For
public libraries, opportunity to reach the
disadvantaged are inherent in this and other
developments in the delivery of information. A
time frame for the emergence of an information
appliance—the tablet computer—capable of
supporting the required information traffic, is
presented and a model is developed to predict
the migration of content from paper to
electroform for each subject discipline. As one
viable approach to library planning for the
coming "new" information environment, the
author suggests converting the "central library"
into an "electronic information distribution
center" that can support users regardless of
physical location, while also incorporating auto-
mated storage and retrieval facilities to minimize
warehousing costs for residual hard copy materi-
als.
The economical provision of information
SERVICE is the objective; not greater staffs,
collections of little used materials, and buildings.
The Great Library Automation
War
has
been won!
The electronic future for libraries has never looked
more promising. The backbone of library automa-
tion—backroom activities such as classification,
cataloging, public catalogs, shelflists, serials control,
and circulation—for all but
the
least endowed libraries
is now so pervasive that few librarians can (or care to)
recall the manual world of the past. Since few library
technical and patron service functions remain unauto-
mated, the market for traditional library applications
is nearing saturation.
What role now should the library play since
telephone reference can be done by "voice mail" and
a computer can spit out overdue notices. What should
the library's position be vis-a-vis changes in the
entertainment, education, and information worlds.
If a library means books, then being a librarian
and operating any library other than a public library
may be an endangered career. In the next five years
or
so,
the market for—and the availability of—informa-
tion printed on paper can be anticipated to shrink by
50 percent. By the turn of the century, paper will
satisfy less than 5 percent of the total commerce in
information. Although education and entertainment have
their own migratory
paths
and rates, the objective will
be the same: paper is going to be replaced with
electronic media.
Library development in the past quarter century
appears to have been guided by architects responding
to
collection growth,
which
leads
to
buildings and
large
collections. This golden period also opened the flood
gates of media,
so
that libraries now include forms and
formats often requiring as much investment in equip-
ment
as
for
the
materials
to
be
played
on
those
devices.
In certain instances, these new formats resulted in
separate, specialized operations such as audio-video
Kountz
is senior associate, Library and Academic
Information
Services Office of the Chancellor, California
State
University.
Note:
The author would be pleased to hear from other
libraries
wishing to process data for their own library through
the
Symphony/Lotus 123 spreadsheet model used in this
article
to estimate the migration of information from print
to
electronic formats. The author would
appreciate
learning
of other persons
and
institutions that
have studied migration
paths
and, perhaps, have developed models of their own.
—
TOMORROW'S
LIBRARIES
—
ISSUE 40 — 9:4 (1992) 39
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