I have just read 2 of the recommended articles - "Away from Icebergs" & "Into a new world of librarianship" & concur with the main drift of them both - that change in libraries is required to keep our services up-to-date & viable. After 20 years of work in public libraries, I now know that constant change is inevitable. As a beginner in 1987, I worked with a manual photocharging loans system, a card catalogue, a typewriter, answered reference questions from print copies of Encyclopedia Britannica AND videos were the new big thing in the library collection. Fast forward to 2007 & we have computers, barcode scanners, an online catalogue accessible to the public from the comfort of their own homes, online databases AND DVDs for loan. Reference services now largely consists of finding information via the Internet - a quicker, more streamlined method but not as much fun, nor as satisfying, as the detective work required in the "old days", when we had to sift through volume after volume to find the required answer.
With the constraints of manual systems in 1987, we offered the best service we possibly could. In 2007, library services know no bounds & library users "can let their fingers do the walking".
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