FUTURE FATIGUE

摘要

From the moment we started planning this special issue I could practically hear the eye rolls on Twitter-not another Library of the Future. Often expressed informally through back channels, there's nonetheless a strong contrarian strand of thought that holds librarianship-if not all of American society-spends too much time, energy, and ink trying to predict what's next. ' Too great a focus on the future, say such skeptics, shortchanges the present, preventing practitioners from being "in the moment," and can make library leaders devalue the work that still comprises the vast majority of interactions to chase trends that appeal to, at best, a much smaller subset of users.