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| future of research libraries
ISBN: 9781783507221
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Emerald Publishing Limited
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Library Science;
Research libraries have been an integral part of the scholarly communication system since that system emerged in its present form. They now face a period of unprecedentedly drastic and rapid change. This is caused, first and foremost, by the migration of much scholarly material to digital formats, raising the question of the future purpose of the OCylibrary spaceOCO. Together with this come transfigurational changes to the communication change of recorded information, with the roles of authors, publishers, database producers and librarians and archivists all in a state of flux. Finally, new forms of document and delivery mechanism, from OCybig dataOCO compilations to microblogs, and from the Semantic Web to the Internet of Things, offer new opportunities and challenges. All these are set against a background of financial constraints, and of the new forms of information behaviour encapsulated in the idea of the Google Generation.The papers in this ebook, written by experts and taking a very broad view of these topics, address the issues head-on. Rather than taking a defensive attitude of seeking to explain how research libraries can survive and maintain their place, they ask rather what functions must be performed, and what skills are needed, if scholarly communication is to thrive in the new environment, where the central institutions will no longer be depositories of physical documents. They reject the erroneous stereotype of the library as a conservative institution, in the bad sense of the world, and seek to identify new roles and new functions which build on the traditional expertise of the research library. And they emphasise that new developments must be solidly based on research, rather than following the trends and whims of the moment.The articles in this ebook will provide insights which will guide policymakers and managers in research libraries to plan positive changes and development. They will be equally valuable to researchers seeking to focus their efforts on providing the best possible evidence to guide library developments, and to educators seeking to provide their students with an education relevant to the next decades of the research library." |
