Editorial Board Thoughts: Adding Value in the Internet Age-Libraries, Openness, and Programmers

摘要

In the age of the Internet, Google, and the nearly crushing proliferation of metadata, libraries have been struggling with how to maintain their relevance and survive in the face of shrinking budgets and misinformed questions about whether libraries still provide value. In case there was ever any question, the answer is "of course we do." Still, an evolving environment and changing context has motivated us to rethink what we do and how we do it. Our response to the shifting environment has been to envision how libraries can provide the best value to our patrons despite an information ecosystem that duplicates (and to some extent replaces) services that have been a core part of our profession for ages. At the same time, we still have to deal with procedures for managing resources we acquire and license, and many of the systems and processes that have served us so well for so many years are not suitable for today's environment.