Week 6 Thing 15 Perspective on Web / Library 2.0

It suddenly dawned on me when I was reading these articles what a huge responsibility librarians will have in the future assisting patrons. The library as we know it now will no longer exist. Wow!
The article I chose to comment on is "Away from the Icebergs". In this article Rick Anderson states that there are three "icebergs" that pose threats to the future success of libraries.The first one is the "just in case" iceberg. Libraries retained a comprehensive collection of materials "just in case" a patron requested it and when they did ask for it, it took time to get the materials. But it is not necessary now or in the future to keep collections because everything is accessible on the Web and patrons can get anything they need online. Do we need to even have collections now?
The next "iceberg" is reliance on user education. Anderson states that libraries do not have the capabilities to be teaching due to poorly equipped libraries and insufficient staffing. Therefore services have to be simple for the patrons to use without training, and if this is not possible than the services need to be fixed.
The final "iceberg" is the "come to us" model of library services. Before if you wanted access to something special you had to go to the library. You no longer need to do this because of the internet so the libraries must figure out ways to bring services to the patrons, rather than insisting they come to the library. Anderson says that libraries need to integrate their services into the daily fabric of life; work study, play.
Anderson finishes his article stating that there are two directions that professions can go when changes come about: they can toss out everything including the good stuff or fail to acknowledge and accept the changes that are occurring. He says that libraries tend to follow the latter path and it is necessary to change this direction.
All of the changes that are coming about with library services in relationship to the web are fascinating... scary, too. Trying to keep up is daunting. I agree with the author that we really need to look at where our libraries are going and what the role of the librarian will be.