Libraries of the Future: The university library of the future will be sparsely staffed, highly decentralized, and have a physical plant consisting of little more than special collections and study areas.
That’s what Daniel Greenstein, vice provost for academic planning and programs at the University of California System, told a room full of university librarians Wednesday at Baruch College of City University of New York, where the higher education technology group Ithaka held a meeting to discuss “sustainable scholarship.”
Another Blowhard
I wonder what his record of future forecasting really is. It is easy to forecast the future, but hard to do it correctly. When you don’t know what you are talking about, you are only a blowhard.
In the first place, college administrators should be reduced in staff and size first as colleges, especially state systems, combine their resources. Funny, they never forecast that. They only discuss how change will affect other people and other jobs.
Outsourcing in the long run only exchanges minimal cost reductions for loss of control. Even the cost reductions are worn out over time, as the cost of revving up new employees is still less than paying increasing costs for outsourcing.
What needs to be outsourced, first, of course, are college admininstrators. They are overpaid and under-worked, and have time to poke around into other professions rather than work to improve their own.
Academic Libraries
Librarianship was never a profession. It was more clerical in nature. Librarians lacks a strong research tradition and this has created many problems for the profession librarians attempt to restructure in the face of technological innovation and budget cuts