Libraries are wonderful places! They always have been. Historically, they have provided spaces that are quiet and contemplative—but also allow space for children to read, browse, play, and learn. They are forward looking institutions while being repositories of our past. Library staffs are collaborative, sharing, caring, and friendly. They are also trusted agents, excellent communicators, and problem solvers. Many librarians are highly technical and analytical, can easily sift through vast amounts of information to find the “good stuff’ and are excellent critical thinkers.
Fantastic! But is all this about to change? Technology is fueling global change almost everywhere, and in many dimensions—society, business, education, recreation, and entertainment. Relatively new tools such as personal computers and communications networks have rapidly changed many aspects of our daily lives. How dependent are we personally, and as a society, upon computers, networks, and phones? Thirty years ago there weren’t many computers; today, computers are everywhere—in cars, toys, games, coffee makers, ovens, phones, ATMs, banks, point-of-sale systems, communication devices, AND the power grid. What happens to us the day all the computers die? What will it mean to society when we have infinite computer memory and communications bandwidth? What if everyone on earth were “connected” by the same communication network? How does this affect our ability to collaborate? Is this good or bad? What does this mean for the future of libraries?
Where are we headed? Futurists are postulating the “law of accelerating change”—that the next 1000 years of change will occur within 50 to 100 years! What else is about to change? A second industrial revolution is afoot—this one is not like the first that was focused upon machines that leveraged our physical abilities—printing presses, cars, and assembly robots, etc. The second revolution is very different. It is about knowledge, information value, and mental abilities. It is possible that in the next two years more original data will be created than in all of human history! Universities and libraries are playing a central role—universities are in the knowledge creation, dissemination, and learning “business.” Libraries are knowledge repositories, and also are effective venues for information dissemination and learning. Nearly every town, city and school in the country has a library of some sort. Fiscal and space resources limit the amount of information and electronic content they can purchase, maintain, contain, and the number of patrons they can serve. Resources are becoming much more expensive. Younger patrons actually expect loans of multimedia materials, digital cameras, video cameras, computing devices! The publishing paradigm for scholarly work and communication is problematic—can it be changed? Intellectual property needs protection since peer-to-peer file sharing can reduce its monetary value to commodity levels, or worse. Should we create digital libraries or participate in digital library initiatives? Can we sustain our current model of libraries, services, and content? Are we overwhelmed yet?
Most businesses today require “knowledge workers” just to survive, and they will need more to compete in a growing, fiercely competitive, global economy. Information literacy, critical thinking skills, teamwork and collaboration are more important than ever. Should the creation of information literate collaborators be part of our library’s mission and vision for the future? It is becoming nearly impossible to filter, read, and understand all the information you need to be effective in your professional or personal life. We are entering the “content centric future”—one where we use machines that are faster than our brains to gather and process vast amounts of data and information. Will machines eventually have capabilities that rival our thinking skills, knowledge synthesis skills, and wisdom? Would we let this happen?
Today, the internet connects almost 350 million people; only ten years ago this number vas very, very small. Today, many schools are connected, but some are not. We still have the “last mile” connection problem in lots of places. Connections are still expensive and vendor competition does not exist in many locations. Most classrooms do not have more than one internet connection—a small window on a very large virtual world.
Universities call the current internet the “commodity internet,” or Internet1. We routinely use the net for browsing the web, sending and receiving email, and experiencing low quality audio and video. While it works ok, there are problems. We can’t connect enough devices to it. It is too slow. It is often unreliable. We don’t have video on demand. The list goes on. It is relatively new “infrastructure,” but already outdated in many ways. The universities recognized some of these issues back in 1996 and formed Internet2—a project that would produce a new generation internet that was much faster, more reliable, and just for university education and research. It was, initially, a very focused and closed community.
What exactly is Internet2 today? Why has it changed? How fast is the network? Who can join? Why would you join? How do you connect? Is it expensive? What software applications does it support? Should libraries embrace educational technologies? What is a digital library? How much multimedia do we really need? Is Internet2 the production K-20 education network for America? Are international communities involved? Can you afford to ignore it? What implications does it have for libraries, patrons, and our future?
This presentation touches on many of the questions posed above. It also provides a framework for thinking about technological change, collaboration, and many of the key challenges facing libraries today—and in our rapidly evolving future.