2013 Charleston Conference

Libraries around the world present their mission as providing access to information. However, Google’s stated mission is “to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, so librarians arguably need to think again about their distinctive contribution in the information arena. In 2003, the SLA asserted that “Information professionals have expertise in total management of information resources,” but other professions now claim competence in information management, indicating that we must identify more clearly the value added by real information pros.

Libraries have traditionally been defined and evaluated by their collections, but the processes and products of collection development have been transformed by social, technological, economic, and political forces. Automation of operations, outsourcing of functions, digitization of content, aggregation of purchases, and empowerment of users have altered the work of library practitioners. Responsibility for description and classification has migrated to the network, while storage and usage have moved off-site. Pundits argue that selection is the definitive professional task for librarians in the digital world, enabling us to give our communities trusted, quality-assured resources; yet big deals, publisher bundles, patron-driven acquisitions, and the participatory library, are all challenging this vision. Others see changes in research and publishing as a chance to extend library roles upstream and downstream in the data-information-knowledge continuum.

The objective of the session is to define the value created by libraries and librarians in 21st century collection development and access management. The presenter will use different models of the collection management and scholarly communication lifecycles and examples from contemporary professional practice to explore the central question with members of the audience, who will be invited to share their thoughts and record their opinions throughout the session. The proposed collaborative inquiry will expose participants to diverse perspectives on the problem and yield new insights into professional competence.