Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: sources and methodologies for the history of libraries in the modern era
- 1 Libraries and the modern world
- Part One Enlightening the Masses: the Public Library as Concept and Reality
- Part Two The Voluntary Ethic: Libraries of our Own
- Part Three Libraries for National Needs: Library Provision in the Public Sphere in the Countries of the British Isles
- Part Four The Nation's Treasury: Britain's National Library as Concept and Reality
- Part Five The Spirit of Enquiry: Higher Education and Libraries
- Part Six The Rise of Professional Society: Libraries for Specialist Areas
- Part Seven The Trade and its Tools: Librarians and Libraries in Action
- Part Eight Automation Pasts, Electronic Futures: the Digital Revolution
- 47 Introduction: the digital revolution in society and in libraries
- 48 Automating the library process
- 49 Informatisation: libraries and the exploitation of electronic information services
- 50 Libraries and librarians in the Information Age
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
50 - Libraries and librarians in the Information Age
from Part Eight - Automation Pasts, Electronic Futures: the Digital Revolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: sources and methodologies for the history of libraries in the modern era
- 1 Libraries and the modern world
- Part One Enlightening the Masses: the Public Library as Concept and Reality
- Part Two The Voluntary Ethic: Libraries of our Own
- Part Three Libraries for National Needs: Library Provision in the Public Sphere in the Countries of the British Isles
- Part Four The Nation's Treasury: Britain's National Library as Concept and Reality
- Part Five The Spirit of Enquiry: Higher Education and Libraries
- Part Six The Rise of Professional Society: Libraries for Specialist Areas
- Part Seven The Trade and its Tools: Librarians and Libraries in Action
- Part Eight Automation Pasts, Electronic Futures: the Digital Revolution
- 47 Introduction: the digital revolution in society and in libraries
- 48 Automating the library process
- 49 Informatisation: libraries and the exploitation of electronic information services
- 50 Libraries and librarians in the Information Age
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
A chapter with a title such as ours unavoidably implies a review of the immediate past and a glimpse into the future. The tacit questions concern the major direction of change and the possible role of libraries in the future. Here we will begin by reviewing what we believe to be a popular prospectus. But we will move on to refuse the commonplace assumption that the future holds radically new challenges for libraries, at least from the quarters that are usually suggested. On the contrary, and notwithstanding talk of an Information Society announced by virtuoso information and communications technologies, the Internet especially, we shall suggest that long-established and ongoing developments in the realm of information generation and supply, though they have accelerated in recent decades, pose deeper questions for the role of libraries and librarians than new technologies and evocations of an Information Age.
The Information Society and libraries
In recent years it has become commonplace to suggest that we are now living in an Information Society. Quite what this means is unclear, and scrutiny reveals it to be a dubious and problematical concept. Nevertheless, this has not prevented commentators from presenting the ‘Information Society’ as a new age which is overturning previous ways of life.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain and Ireland , pp. 639 - 653Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
References
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