Rothberg has a good point. What will libraries be doing in the future? Will the Library be completely digital? Will we walk into a wired building and sit at stations and download our stuff while the roving IT (formerly known as reference, circ, av, etc…) department helps people with technology? I don’t know. But we’ve been discussing that possibility for so long that it seems like the “libraries as the repository of the written word” idea isn’t going anywhere fast.
Brian Mathews (although seemingly a pompous gamer know it all type when I saw him at the ACRL conference — yeah, i am just jealous…) also makes a strong argument about the direction librarians often go. He states that we often think like trees instead of like a forest… not seeing the big picture. I know that I often try and think creatively but end up thinking like a tree instead of wrapping my brain around the whole idea. Mathews also cites a great book on his OTHER blog about user experience that I am sure goes beyond web design user experience and could be used while designing new library spaces…
