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From the University Librarian

In preparation for a meeting to be held by the Mellon Foundation, Sarah Thomas recently held a brown-bag lunch to discuss with staff some of the questions that might arise in considering the future relationship between university libraries and schools of library and information science (LIS). Sarah outlines below the points that emerged from the exchange.

Q: In twenty years, how will the role of the research library have changed in the 21st-century university? Is there a model for how they should relate to one another that we might work toward?

  • Libraries move from content provider to content creator/publisher
  • Librarians move to information managers
  • Libraries move from local service providers to global service providers
  • Large libraries or third parties might provide background services for others
  • Generalists move to specialists (for example, bioinformatician)
  • Librarians might serve on teams of staff and faculty, creating educational packages for distance and local learning

Q: How do we think the role of schools of library and information science will have changed?

  • They will have gone out of existence?
  • There will be more partnership with other academic programs; dual degrees, perhaps in a three-year program ending in a subject masters or M.B.A.
  • They will also offer more research
  • Marketing will increase
  • There will be a joint degree in museum/library management
  • There will be a joint degree in library/publishing

Q: What research problems should we be working on now so that their solutions might intersect with problems that may not become imminent for a decade or more?

  • Usability and interface
  • Datamining
  • Automatic metadata creation
  • Rights management

Q: What research challenges are currently surfacing in libraries that might not yet have the attention of the LIS research community?

  • Asset management
  • Communicating with clients who need more than text
  • New modes of information organization (visual?)
  • Information policy
  • Measurement

Q: Is there a model for how they should relate to one another that we might work toward?

  • Educators need direct practical experience

Q: What are common demographic or diversity issues faced by both academic research libraries and LIS programs? Can they be addressed collectively? Are there offsetting demographics (for example, in gender) and, if so, what does that mean?

  • Aging population
  • Need for higher salaires

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