Those in the “biz” have been fully aware of the gradual demise of the traditional librarian in our industry. Traditional roles as reference clerks and human cataloging machines are slowly disappearing or morphing into digital knowledge
experts.

KM World brought this topic to our attention in their article, “The Future of the The Future: The continuing saga of the knowledge librarian.” The surviving libraries will be the ones that remember that they are in the knowledge business and embrace the new roles available.

Others are facing challenges in getting respect from upper management, being victims in relentless cost-cutting and ignoring the shift from bookshelves to virtual reality. Amazon’s recent e-book news will hopefully wake up a few living in denial.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.