Re: New strategy at NY Times and libraries

[Heather Morrison <heatherm@eln.bc.ca>]

Bernie Sloan wrote:

I believe we will be seeing more publishers experimenting with 
doing away with subscription fees in favor of advertising 
revenues. Times Select met the NYT expectations, and was bringing 
in $10 million annually in subscription fees. The NYT thinks the 
upside from ad revenues will be greater. Granted, the NYT is not 
a scholarly journal, but I think this move will have a lot of 
people in the publishing industry sitting up and taking notice.

I may have mentioned this before, but if this sort of trend 
continues will it gradualy begin to marginalize the library, bit 
by bit? In other words, if more information becomes available 
freely will that lead people to think they need the library less?

Heather's Comment:

> From my perspective, this depends a great deal on how we 
librarians choose to position ourselves for an open future on the 
world wide web.  Are we seen as the champions of open access that 
we are?  Many libraries are now supporting publishing and 
archiving of their user's works; this is a role that can be 
expanded.

The need for information literacy is our ever-expanding 
information universe will be increasing dramatically over the 
next few years; it is absurb to think otherwise.

The need for reference assistance will increase.  I'm sure I not 
the only librarian who is constantly being asked for help to find 
things, that people know are free on the internet.  The most 
common reference questions are likely to change, with "How can I 
find some information on..." already a much less relevant 
question today, but "How do I make sure I don't miss something 
important"? and "How do I evaluate what I find?" increasing in 
importance.

Collecting in an open age has more to do with selection and 
preservation than with purchasing - but then, hasn't this always 
been what librarianship is about?  Purchasing is a means to an 
end for libraries; it has never been the goal in and of itself.

If we find ourselves with time on our hands, why not find new 
roles as research team members, provide the in-depth research 
assistance we presently have no time for, and begin collecting 
and preserving important blogs and listsers?

There is a future for librarians, an exciting one, in an open 
age, if we choose to envision and pursue it.  It is up to us!

Bernie Sloan's original message:
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0709/msg00060.html

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, 
and does not reflect the opinion or policy of BC Electronic 
Library Network or Simon Fraser University Library

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com