William F. Garrity

The Council on Libraries and Information Resources publishes a report of a recent meeting about "HOW SHOULD WE be rethinking the research library in a swiftly changing information landscape?" 

A Vision for the 21st-Century Library

The breadth of the discussion underscored a critical point: the future of the research library cannot be considered apart from the future of the academy as a whole. Researchers are asking new questions and are developing new methodological approaches and intellectual strategies. These methods may entail new models of scholarly communication—for example, a greater reliance on data sets and multimedia presentations. This has profound consequences for academic publications because traditional printed books and journals cannot adequately capture these novel approaches. With the predicted rise in new forms of scholarship, the promotion-and-tenure process, which favors print publications (especially in the humanities), will need to be rethought. As these methods of communication change, the procedures, skills, and expertise that libraries need to manage them will change as well. With growing cross-disciplinary emphasis, it will also be necessary to reassess the organization of higher education—its departments, schools, and centers.

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