[WEB4LIB] Predictions for the next...

[Thomas Dowling]

Andrew Mutch dangled this bait:

> Amid all of these Happy New Year greetings, I'm curious as to what people
> think will be the trends for the use of the Internet in the library
> setting.  Predictions for the next year or few years will probably be most
> useful although if any deep-thinkers want to go for 10, have at it!
> :)

[Note: these predictions are only worth the paper they're printed on if you
bother to print them.]

Library services will increasingly be valued by the degree to which they
interconnect.  Services that can't take you from citation to catalog
holdings to full text/ILL/document delivery will be unsatisfactory.

No universal method for user authentication will be available in the
foreseeable future.  We'll still be fiddling with reverse proxies, URL
rewriters, and site-specific kludges when we're asked for our predictions
in, say, January 2003.

I predict that a lot of people will predict a major decline in
print-on-paper publishing, and that those predictions will not come true in
the foreseeable future.  Among other reasons, publishers' paranoid
anti-copying efforts will significantly hinder widescale adoption of
electronic publishing in the consumer market.

That notwithstanding, display technology will approach the resolution and
contrast of readable print, making it more reasonable to ask patrons to view
lower-demand documents electronically.  Currently, of course, the bulk of
electronic publishing assumes the reader will print the document.

There will be an open-source page desciption language that will be backward
compatible with PDF.

There will be cleaner separations between bibliographic database publishers,
bibliographic database vendors, data location, and end-user interface.  That
is, choosing to buy database A will not require you to get it from retailer
B by connecting to web site C and using interface D.  Having chosen A, you
will still be able to make strategic choices about B, C, and D.

Library Internet workstations will go the way of library typewriters as
Internet access becomes highly portable and wireless.  Think of a Palm VII
with a paperback-sized 600dpi display and $20/month unlimited access fee
(it'll probably do telephony too).  We'll provide a small number of devices
for quick catalog lookups, etc., but that's it.  And yes, this will widen
the division between technological haves and have nots.


Thomas Dowling
Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu