Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
possible.
For libraries, then, the urgent and rather frightening question is this:
in a world in which relevant books and articles can be located quickly
and easily, where they can frequently be purchased online and access can
be granted instantaneously, and where even print materials can be
located and ordered with unprecedented ease and speed, what is the
justification for purchasing large numbers of printed books and
stockpiling them ahead of time against the by-no-means certain
possibility of future patron need?
One answer to this question might be that the library is about more
than simply meeting users' immediate needs; it is also about applying
bibliographic wisdom to the creation of a wisely selected subset of the
overwhelming universe of available documents. The problem is that our
users seem to be decreasingly interested in taking advantage of that
service. They tend to feel, rightly or wrongly, that they themselves are
capable of evaluating and selecting the resources that will meet their
needs, if only given the opportunity to do so. If entities other than the
library give them that opportunity, they will take it. Library patrons
may believe that they are just as good as librarians at evaluating and
selecting research materials. But whether they are correct or not
matters little to the future of libraries and publishers. The effect on
members of the traditional scholarly information chain will be exactly
the same - they will not survive.
Mobile devices and mobile access
It is an article of conventional faith that no one wants to read for
extended periods from an electronic screen. This may be true, but it is
probably time to revisit that particular piece of conventional wisdom,
for at least two reasons:
Electronic screens are quickly becoming much more readable. The
Kindle e-book reader, which features a screen made up of
microscopic coloured balls that flip from black to white to form
text, provides a reading surface that is every bit as easy on the
eyes as printed paper (Amazon, 2009). The Kindle has drawbacks,
of course: for one, it is like a book in that you have to remember
to pick it up and take it with you; additionally, many still find the
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