#15 the future's so bright, I need new eyes

I remember back in days of yore when I was studying hard, learning about correct placement of full-stops and how not all information can be found on the internet (this was not actually very long ago) one of our assignments was to find articles about the future of librarianship and write an essay or something about it. Can't remember precisely.

Anyway, I remember trawling through Emerald and finding heaps of articles talking about how the profession was doomed. I found books telling me the same thing. Some of these books had been written in the late 80s or early 90s. The journal articles were about 10 years on, more or less, and were still saying the same things.

Having read a lot of the articles linked to in the post, I think that the more things change, the samer they get. I am increasingly thinking that librarians are a collective of insecure navel-gazers, so concerned with remaining important and relevant to the future of society that they spend heaps of time agonising about the best ways to do so and how exciting it all is, really. There seems to be an undercurrent of desperation in many of these articles, as if their authors never quite got over being picked last for the softball team in gym class and are still trying hard to prove how cool they really are.

I think that we would actually be better served by a bit less introspection and a bit more doing. One of the authors (can't remember which and am running out of time on the desk tonight) actually makes reference to living in perpetual beta - not being afraid to initiate change and then change it again. Yup. It would be better still if we could just do these things and spend a bit less time convincing ourselves and each other of how necessary it is. Adaptability in action.

Oh, and if I ever run into that guy with the ponytail and the ibook in a dark alley, he's going to be whacked over the head with it. Pompous git.