Seth Godin over de toekomst van de bibliotheek

Seth Godin heeft een prikkelend artikel geschreven getiteld The Future of the Library. Hij doet daarin een aantal ferme uitspraken en aanbevelingen over hoe bibliotheken en hun medewerkers tegen hun huidige, maar vooral toekomstige werk zouden moeten aankijken. Een aantal quotes uit het artikel:

The librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

[…]

Want to watch a movie? Netflix is a better librarian, with a better library, than any library in the country. The Netflix librarian knows about every movie, knows what you’ve seen and what you’re likely to want to see. If the goal is to connect viewers with movies, Netflix wins.

[…]

Librarians that are arguing and lobbying for clever ebook lending solutions are completely missing the point. They are defending library as warehouse as opposed to fighting for the future, which is librarian as producer, concierge, connector, teacher and impresario.

[…]

We all love the vision of the underprivileged kid bootstrapping himself out of poverty with books, but now (most of the time), the insight and leverage is going to come from being fast and smart with online resources, not from hiding in the stacks.

Maar Godin ziet, ondanks zijn kritische uitspraken, de bibliotheek allesbehalve verdwijnen. Hoe hij daar tegenaan kijkt lees je in de rest van het artikel:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/05/the-future-of-the-library.html

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