The sky is falling... was: Re: Welcome to the Schoogle Era

[Scott Drone-Silvers]

[sarcasm]
Greetings, former colleagues;

Shall we all just declare our professions) obsolete now? Shouldn't be a big
deal for all the folks who came to librarianship as their
second/third/fourth career anyway - just another job change. And the new
economy needs service industry personnel. I hear McDonald's is hiring. If
they haven't outsourced their fry cook operations to Asia yet...
[/sarcasm]

Seriously, it seems like "another day, another sign of the library
apocalypse". This looks interesting, and certainly merits further research -
not to mention those of you with higher profiles than me contacting Google
to see how we can work together on this (to help guide people from the
abstract they get to an academic library where they might have the full
text, already bought and paid for). Now THAT would be VERY useful.

But while we're complaining about how we suck at marketing [and still not
really coming up with any useful suggestions for fixing that, AFAICS), let's
also complain about how we suck at valuing our profession. While we are, yet
again, predicting our own imminent demise, should we also plan for the
demise of all of our educational institutions as well? After all, if you can
get everything you need to know with a Google search and a credit card, then
we will have to close all of the community colleges, colleges, universities,
et cetera, since we will probably only need the University of Phoenix, if
them. [Just ask UoP]

I don't think this means that we will be closing our doors anytime soon. Nor
do I expect to see Karen shutting down LII next week/month/year. I DO think
that we need to think HARD about how we offer what we offer, and instead of
trying to reinvent the wheel, work with Google to make this tool work with
us.


Scott Drone-Silvers
Director of Library Services
Lake Land College
5001 Lake Land Blvd.
Mattoon, IL 61938
(217) 234-5338 / FAX (217) 234-5533
Web Page: http://www.lakelandcollege.edu/library/