I hope everyone involved with Think Tank will read Lynch’s article. I saw your link to it here earlier, but just today was sent the URL through a listserv I belong to- a health sciences library listserv, no less- and actually took the time to read it.

It’s a little shocking-

“Others would argue that the issue of the future of libraries as social, cultural and community institutions, along with related questions about the character and treatment of what we have come to call “intellectual property” in our society, form perhaps the most central of the core questions within the discipline of digital libraries – and that these questions are too important to be left to librarians, who should be seen as nothing more than one group among a broad array of stakeholders.”

Yikes-

But on the other hand- I agree. We aren’t the only group interested in these issues, or that should be interested in these issues. Perhaps our survival depends on the involvement of other constituencies.

Another quote:

“Perhaps the overarching theme here, and it is one that may point to a major direction for research that follows on the last decade of progress in digital libraries, is connecting and integrating digital libraries with broader individual, group and societal activities, and doing this across meaningful time horizons that recognize digital libraries and related constructs as an integral and permanent part of the evolving information environment. The next decade for digital libraries may well be characterized most profoundly by the transition from technologies and prototypes to the ubiquitous, immersive, and pervasive deployment of digital library technologies and services in the broader information and information technology landscape.”

Beth Hill
U of I Moscow

You are right, Beth, that Lynch sucker punches librarians with his comment that “these questions are too important to be left to librarians, who should be seen as nothing more than one group among a broad array of stakeholders.” I would counter that librarians may take the lead to these “shareholders” by virtue of experience in information management and as gatekeepers to content and knowledge, online and not.

Who else, really? And in any case, wouldn’t this also guarantee our own survival? I could be wrong of course, but I’d rather think that given the scope, breadth, and know-how that librarians possess (and the chaotic equanimity in which we greet most technological change), we are more than suited to address this kind of thorny concern. I say, bring it on!:-)

Memo Cordova