Creating the future : essays on librarianship in an age of great change

In the ever-changing environment of the information age, librarians and libraries face many critical questions.

Is technology a tool for the profession or a threat?

Will librarians be able to protect free access to information or will the changing political and economic climate force libraries to become more privatized and driven to deliver services that are revenue producing?

What is the future of library education? Will libraries survive the information age? And perhaps the most difficult question of all, does it matter if they do not survive?

Leading experts in the profession (Nancy C. Kranich, W. Lee Hisle, the late John C. Swan, Nancy L. Eaton, Gordon M. Conable, Carrie Gardner, Patricia Glass Schuman, Peggy Sullivan, Camila A.

Alire, Barbara I. Dewey, June Lester, Irene B. Hoadley, Susan Gilbert Beck, Donald E. Riggs, Herbert S. White, Sara Behrman and Joseph R. Dionne) answer these and other questions in this thought-provoking collection of essays, all but two of which were created for this volume.

Part One explores the role of technology and its impact on the future of the profession.

New roles for librarians are discussed in Part Two, while the delivery of library services in a changing environment is the focus of Part Three.