Resignation is a very thought provoking, albeit somewhat depressing, post by Alexander Johannesen on the Shelter It blog. I have been also reading posts by him, very well presented, on the Next Generation Catalog for Libraries (NGC4Lib) listserv (where I found the link for this topic).
In the post, he discusses how the library world isn’t doing enough with what we have, and what we are doing isn’t being applied in the right way. His points are well made, and worth passing along, but I don’t feel that he is hitting the nail quite on the head.
There is a lot we can be doing better. We are not in enough control of our future, and it is costing us time, money, and people. We cannot afford much within any of these categories.
However, we have gone through a great deal of change in the past 30 years (just look at the effect of computers alone), much more than could have been predicted. Change is stressful; we are a stressed profession. Change is necessary, though, and we must focus on changing our world to gain control, independence, and flexibility.
The next 30 years will not be forgiving ones, and I would hate to think of us becoming even less relevant in a world that is increasingly becoming enamored of the Google-type keyword search as being the end-all in retrieving knowledge. This is a real possibility.
Read his essay; take it to heart. Don’t resign yourself, though. Become determined to direct change to everyone’s benefit and to make libraries better.
