[Web4lib] Stephen Abram: Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition

[B.G. Sloan]

I never quite know what to think when I finish a Stephen Abram article. 

I do understand that there's a need for futurist cheerleading, prodding reluctant members of the library community into thinking about the need to adapt to changing environments, but I find it hard to take this kind of writing seriously. For example: "I don’t want an eight crayon box future. I want the whole 128 crayon box with all the colors and the sharpener in the big carousel! If we put our minds to it, we can have the whole cake and meet the needs of everyone — just as we have always dreamed of doing." 

And there are some oddities here. Abram asks: "Can we imagine the Librarian 2.0 of 2020 as the guru of the information age? Librarian 2.0 strives to understand the power of Web 2.0 opportunities and has learned the major tools." What the...? Don't we already *have* librarians who understand the power of Web 2.0 and who have learned Web 2.0 tools? And people are already talking about Web 3.0. Will librarians still be using Web 2.0 tools twelve years from now? That's kinda what it sounds like.

And then there's the following: "I am always surprised at the cognitive and value disconnect when some libraries continue to limit innovation by declaring copyright on their catalogs!" That threw me a bit...how many libraries declare copyright on their catalogs? I can't think of any (of course that doesn't mean there aren't any).

A lot of what Abrams says in this article has been written about for years. Yeah, reference is in transition, but that's been pretty much the thrust of discussions on reference since the turn of the century. There's one sentence in the article that pretty much sums up the article for me: "To capture market share and, more importantly, mindshare, we must now prioritize our long-term and short-term strategies around serving the real customer (and not just the internal needs of library workers)." It's a good point, but people have been saying things like that for years!

I guess my basic gripe about the article is that it sounds kinda dated. And that seems rather odd considering that it comes from a futurist.

Bernie Sloan
Sora Associates
Bloomington, IN


--- On Thu, 9/4/08, McKiernan, Gerard [LIB] <gerrymck at iastate.edu> wrote:

From: McKiernan, Gerard [LIB] <gerrymck at iastate.edu>
Subject: [Web4lib] Stephen Abram: Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition
To: web4lib at webjunction.org, lita-l at ala.org
Date: Thursday, September 4, 2008, 5:23 PM

Colleagues/
 
Reference in Transition 
 
/Gerry
 
FEATURE
Evolution to Revolution to Chaos? Reference in Transition 
by Stephen Abram, Vice President of Innovation, SirsiDynix


[ http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep08/Abram.shtml
<http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep08/Abram.shtml>  ]

/Gerry

Gerry McKiernan
Associate Professor
Science and Technology Librarian
Iowa State University Library
Ames IA 50011

gerrymck at iastate.edu