by Joseph Kraus, Rocky Mountain Chapter, Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics, and Science-Technology Divisions

For librarians and information professionals to be truly future ready, we should be able to predict the future, but of course that is impossible.  One of the ways I think about the future is to think about how accurate predictions of the present were in the past.  For the sake of picking a date, I am going to predict what things are going to be like for libraries and information centers in the year 2031 using 1991-2011 as the lens.  Since I am an academic librarian, this article will have an academic bent to it, and I hope you can extrapolate the logic to fit your situation.

When it comes to technology, Jason Griffey from the University of Tennessee says that the future is already here.  But if the future is already here, then what is going to happen in the real future?  I would guess that tablets are here to stay, and that ebook readers will also continue to grow in popularity.  Tablet and laptop computers will continue to get lighter, cheaper, faster, hold more information, and have more memory.  They will continue to follow Moore’s Law.  Cloud computing will continue to grow, especially as more and more data becomes available, and it needs a place to live.  Software will continue to fracture with more OS choices and more bloatware as the space becomes available. More and more people will communicate with each other using smartphones (or some other device) in the US and throughout the World.  Digital images and videos will continue to get easier to make, edit, store and publish online. 

Even though technology changes rapidly, social constructs and culture change more slowly.  In 1991, people:

• read books, magazines and journals in print
• watched television on cable, go to the movies or rent VHS movies from Blockbuster
• called each other on a landline telephone
• snail-mailed pictures to friends
• listened to music on the radio or on tape/CD
• met each other at bars or coffee houses
• drove gasoline-powered cars to go to those places

 
Today, in 2011, people:

• read books, magazines and journals (many with an e-reader or on the web)
• watch television (either on cable or dish), go to see movies, or get movies on DVD/Netflix
• call each other on cell phones, text each other or call someone on Skype
• see what friends are posting on Facebook or Twitter
• listen to music on an iPod or some other device
• meet each other at bars or coffee houses
• drive gasoline-powered cars (or a hybrid car) to those places

 
People still want to converse with each other either in person or using technology.  That will not change in 2031.  People will want to read, view, or make information products.  People will want to meet with each other, either in person or virtually.  Speaking of that, virtual meeting software is getting cheaper and easier to setup and use, so that will be used much more often in the future.

In my view, the publishing and media industry is a cultural and social construction.  In 1991, the major publishers had a good strong hold on the publishing industry, and they have a similar hold on publishing today.  In the last 20 years, major publishers have consolidated , and I don’t see the big publishing houses withering up and dying.  There has been a lot of activity in the Open Access front, and they offer some great alternatives to publishing, but they have not made a huge dent into the profit margins of for-profit publishing outfits. In the academic and STM publishing world, there is resistance to change in traditional publishing outlets. See Michael Clark and Josh Sternberg and Leonard Cassuto.  However, there are many people who say radical transformation of scholarly publishing is ahead. Cameron Neylon and Michael Nielsen  and Ingmar Mewburn and Nigel Thrift.

One aspect of change in the publishing industry has been the contraction of A&I sources. Since more and more content is found on the web, people are searching Google and Google Scholar to find scholarly content.  They are finding good enough information.  If Google Scholar (or some other search engine that might be developed in the next 20 years) really wanted to, they could put a big dent into the revenue stream of traditional citation searching database businesses. 

When it comes to social change for scholarly authors, they get rewarded through the tenure and promotion (T&P) process.  Many universities and colleges have been employing less and less tenured faculty, and there is debate over the long term viability of tenure on campus.  Many people think that higher education is ripe for disruption.

Be that as it may, the faculty who do research in universities and colleges are under pressure to publish this research in high quality sources.  In 1991, the perception of high quality journals was limited to certain journals and publishers, and over the last 20 years, it was very difficult for new sources to be added to those lists.  Over the next 20 years, these lists of journals and publishers will probably stay roughly the same because the administrations of academic institutions are very slow to change their T&P policies.

Some authors are starting to see the citation advantage of making their work available through Open Access sources, but this has been slow on the uptake.  Over the next 20 years, more faculty will see these advantages and change their behavior, but it will not be a quick change.

By 2031, the technology will have changed quite a bit.  Maybe we are typing in the air while we view our email in virtual reality glasses.  We might be able to talk to our documents, and the language is automagically translated into Russian for our colleague in Moscow.  We might be able to digitally video record our waking hours, so that we can easily remember dates, names, people, places and the things we thought about and said.  Whatever technological changes are ahead, the behavior and the culture of the people who use that technology will not change near as rapidly. 

Joseph Kraus is currently the Science & Engineering Librarian at the University of Denver (DU) Penrose Library. DU is a medium sized private university in Denver, Colorado. He is active in the Physics-Astronomy-Mathematics and the Sci-Tech Divisions of the Special Libraries Association (SLA). He is also a member of ALA/ACRL and the American Society for Engineering Education. He has written numerous articles and has presented on topics from Library2.0 resources, unconferences and collection development.

by Mirah Dow, Associate Professor, Coordinator, PhD Program, School of Library and Information Management, Emporia State University

Equipped, organized, arranged, primed, willing, and able?  I hope so, but to do what?

As a university professor who first experienced work and life in big businesses (Hesston Corporation, now AGCO; and Gulf States Paper Corporation, now The Westervelt Company; and Proctor & Gamble), I am often frustrated by the distance that often seems to exist between the corporate world and academic communities such as the award-winning institutions I have worked in for the past two decades.  It seems to me, corporate and academic communities have lots in common, especially when it comes to topics such as “learning (life-long).” I’m wondering if we (librarians) can put aside the typical debate that often divides corporate and academic worlds about whether to be focused on the “bottom-line” or “people” long enough to think about future ready learning. Yes, I know we can.

Special librarians, along with librarians in all types of libraries, today perhaps more than ever before, must be able to posit significant philosophical, professional and technical knowledge. To be future ready, I believe today’s librarians and information professionals must be able to apply philosophy from a variety of cognate disciplines to new problems and issues in virtual and physical libraries. As future ready researchers, we must have the intellectual capacity to focus on the phenomenon of information regardless of the format or context; attend to the entire information transfer cycle from creation to deletion of information; and, recognize the interdisciplinary nature of our field, which draws from scientific and social science disciplines, as well as from information science and library science.

I suggest these future ready learning goals .

Develop the intellectual capacity to connect and integrate several academic disciples or schools of thought, professions, or technologies in the pursuit of a common task. Interdisciplinary studies and skills are needed today more than ever to cross traditional, academic disciplinary boundaries as new opportunities and challenges in the information age emerge.

Know and be able to articulate theory that can potentially be used to construct new theoretical frameworks relevant and useful in the investigation of new information problems and topics. Be able to articulate awareness that out of various paradigms of social science thought develops related assumptions, theories, models, tools and practices.

Be committed to communicating information and knowledge to people. Librarians and information professionals must be moral agents responsible to themselves, others, and society as a whole. Embrace and convey values  and ethics of library and information science such as service to society; access to information in many forms and formats; reading and the book are important; respect for truth and the search for truth; tolerance; the public good; justice; and aesthetics.

Think across all cognitive domains, which according to Bloom (1956, 1994) are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In doing so, demonstrate abilities to remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate and create, and to use critical thinking and writing skills within a critical, social theory framework.

Use and conduct research.  Because information practices are always open to change and always demand responsible, professional services, research in library and information studies addresses many critical issues. How does electronic information change libraries and other scholarly organizations? How do libraries anticipate community needs in the 21^st century? What is the librarian’s role in adding value to electronic information? There are many more critical topics and questions to be asked and answered.

Communicate, in writing and orally, clear and concise scholarly and professional knowledge of content and practice. Ensure the accuracy of research through ethical reporting of research results. Use excellent communication skills to instruct others to develop information and technology skills and to work in teams.

Ready?  Have you achieved each of these future ready learning goals? If yes, great!

Get set. In case you are wondering, I hope you will consider taking yourself into the future through participation (if you have not already done so) in a Library and Information Studies, Master of Library Science (MLS) and/or PhD degree program. The American Library Association provides a searchable database for programs. There are many programs designed to educate dynamic leaders in the field of library and information science who are prepared to bridge the theory-practice divide.

I hope you will strongly consider applying to Emporia State University, School of Library and Information Management’ s MLS or PhD degree program. We provide an environment that fosters interdisciplinary and multicultural learning experiences, and will help you to achieve these six (and more), future-ready learning goals.  We are now accepting applications for a new PhD cohort that will begin fall 2012.  We accept MLS applications each semester and offer blended MLS course delivery in Kansas, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon.  See our website for program requirements, application procedure, and schedule of new program start dates (by location).

Go . Go into the future able to bridge the theory-practice divide. The Master of Library Science and/or Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree program in library and information studies can enable you to be future-ready. Let’s talk.

Reference

Anderson, L. W., & Sosniak, L. A.  (Eds.)  (1994). Bloom’s taxonomy:  A forty-year retrospective.  Ninety-third yearbook of the national Society for the Study of Education, Part 2.  Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press.

Bloom, B.S., & Krathwohl, D.R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives:  The classification of educational goals, by a committee of college and university examiners.  Handbook I:  Cognitive Domain.  N.Y., N.Y.:  Longmans, Green.

Mirah Dow is an Associate Professor at the School of Library and Information Management, Emporia State University, where she teaches foundations of information science, psychology of information use, organization theory, and research and inquiry to Master of Library Science and PhD students.  During the past five years, she has investigated the effects of state-licensed school library media specialists (LMS) on student achievement in Kansas as represented by state assessment proficiency rates at the school  level.  Dr. Dow currently coordinates SLIM’s PhD program.  From 1994-1999, Dr. Dow was director of a special library, The Kansas Resource Center on Autism, at The Teachers College, ESU. She can be reached at Mdow@emporia.edu.

Faculty Profile: http://slim.emporia.edu/