Libraries and Researchers of the Future?

With the rapidly increasing dissemination of e-books, online journal articles, and basically any information that you could ever dream of wanting to know on the internet, are our libraries becoming a thing of the past? How has library use changed since the rapid expansion of online information? How has Google and other search engines changed the way that people conduct research? These are some of the questions that were addressed by a British study conducted in January, 2008; "a ciber briefing paper. Information behaviour of the researcher of the future".

Many of the studies findings regarding library use were consistent with what any student would likely tell you; most notably that we use search engines rather than libraries because they are easier and more intuitive. Students are intimidated by libraries. It is much more within our comfort zone, and a whole lot easier to Google something than to physically go to the library or try to navigate their complicated online databases. We also tend to search horizontally; that is to briefly and incompletely view a lot of different information sources rather than reading entire articles. We "squirrel" away many interesting articles reading for possible future use.

Surprisingly, the study also revealed that young people may not be the expert searchers that many believe; often having difficulty developing effective search strategies. It surmised that students must be taught library skills early, before they enter college, in order to become effective researchers.

The conclusion of the study was that the availability of information on the internet has minimized the need for libraries and librarians as intermediaries, and the shift away from libraries will likely become increasingly rapid as more e-books and other information is made available on the web. The bottom line is that libraries need to adapt or they may become a thing of the past.

Now what do libraries need to do if they don't want to become a thing of the past? Well, address those issues; become more user friendly, shifting from a content oriented to a more user focused perspective. With their limited budgets, they may need to integrate their services more with popular internet search engines to take advantage of their deep pockets. But most of all they need to study their users and base their future strategies on their research habits.

In my opinion I think libraries are here to stay for a while. However, I believe that they will be more seamlessly integrated with other web search engines in order to become more user friendly. And as for the physical library itself, I think it will become more of a social place like the bookstores of today, a place to drink coffee, read magazines, and relax. In the end as long as there are people that like the smell and feeling of reading an actual book, libraries will be with us.