Yes, 2006.Karen Schneider posted a blog entry on the ALA TechSource blog last week that got me to thinking. Not only is it an interesting perspective of the near future for libraries, but she does it in a style that reads as if it
already happened. It got me to thinking about a couple things as we consider our future.

1. I’ve generally been taught that goals should be identified in the positive, as if they’ve already happened. The act of doing so, makes it seem more real. Possible.

2. Pat Wagner taught us during Summer Institute 2005 a method of visioning the future. Rather than identifying what we want, we should describe it; describe the physical evidence that things have changed. What is happening in that future scenario? What do you see and hear? What are people doing?

When I was thinking about Karen’s comments in her blog posting, I realized that it read as if it were real because she used a similar method. I had to check myself a couple times while reading it. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t heard about EveryBook yet! Then I remembered, this was written from a future perspective. It’s very effective. Not just the content of Karen’s perspective of the future, but the method by which she shares it with us.

And I wonder, what will we report on January 1, 2007? What has happened in our library community? How are our patrons accessing their libraries? What does our success look like?