JISC

Senior figures in the library community offer their thoughts on the future of libraries

Libraries have never been more interesting, difficult and challenging! What is a library and what should it be in 2012, 2020 and beyond are questions that require thought and debate. I’m delighted that JISC is up for the task, and look forward to collaborating with them in this important debate.

I would encourage the debate to ask hard questions about how well all of us really know, let alone anticipate and respond quickly to the needs of users. I would like to see an articulation of the values of libraries and their relevance today, and where can information professionals really add value in the future?

Dame Lynn Brindley, CEO
British Library

I think it’s wonderful that JISC is launching Libraries of the Future because it’s so important for us as a community to be engaged in thinking really hard about what libraries of the future are going to look like and how they’re going to operate.

I'm interested in a genuine community-wide engagement on this theme, which informs leadership. I think leadership is a key issue we should focussing on at the moment as we need it more than ever, to maintain the quality of our profession.

John MacColl, European Director (RLG)
OCLC

I hope this Libraries of the Future debate will not only be good for advocacy but will also provide an informed and joined up strategic framework for libraries to engage with for the next 10 years, and to identify issues that are best resolved at national, international or local levels, possibly setting a clear set of partnership agendas, so that bodies like RLUK can work proactively with other organisations, including JISC.

Anne Poulson, Executive Director
Research Libraries UK

Until recently academic libraries operated within a stable, print dominant environment. Users can now access many information resources via their computer, regardless of time and place. Academic librarians can now deliver new services never previously contemplated.

SCONUL welcomes the debate JISC has initiated and looks forward both to contributing to that debate and working with JISC in a range of areas of common interest in the coming months.

Anne Bell, Chair
SCONUL

Libraries worldwide are finding it difficult to plan their futures in a rapidly changing environment. Powerful economic, social and technological forces, most of them hard or impossible for us to influence, press down remorselessly.

We badly need a conversation between ourselves on the way forward for libraries, and it's both timely and welcome that JISC is starting its communications theme on this very
issue.

Andrew Green, Librarian
National Library of Wales

Only time will tell whether it is true or not, and whether this particular approach to focusing activity and discussion will or will not be successful, but D-Lib applauds the effort. Envisioning how libraries will be affected by the development of new technologies, and the changing needs and expectations of users, is more than an intellectual exercise. What libraries anticipate as necessary to provide users' future information needs affects how they choose to direct their resources today. The Libraries of the Future website could be of significant value to library administrators making those resurce allocation decisions.

Bonita Wilson
Editor, D-Lib Magazine