Two days ago we had an excellent librarians meeting at Samuel Merritt. If I had not been there I would have been at UC Berkeley, where the Commission on the Future of the UC Berkeley Library hosted a symposium to reimagine the 21st century research library.
The Commission is a faculty-led group which set to issue a report in mid-March. I presume that Friday's symposium--which featured former California state librarian Kevin Starr, among many other luminaries--was part of their information-gathering efforts.
The central question, as ever, is: what is the role of the academic library in the digital age? Is it to supply resources through vendor-developed packages? Is it to spearhead new modes of scholarly communication? What's the relationship between faculty, students and librarians? What will become of our grand physical spaces?
These questions will take a generation, or two, to sort out. Yesterday we had lunch with a friend who works at the UC Berkeley Library. She attended the symposium and found it to be very thought-provoking. In some form I've wrestled with these questions ever since I became a librarian, as have many of my colleagues and friends in the profession.
During that conversation I realized what's changed, in my head at least. I used to want answers to all these questions TODAY, if not YESTERDAY. Now I realize that these are huge, enormous questions that will never really be answered. All we can do is ride the wave and seek to shape its course. Patience is a virtue.
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