Rick Anderson's article made some excellent points in collection development, service delivery, and the role of our librarians. http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/2.htm
This combined with the information given by Envirosell at PLA has inspired a new analysis of our role in the future.
His point that building a comprehensive "just in case" collection of materials that anticipates the user's every need (without providing wastefully where no need exists) doesn't work and is no longer the direction we need to go in light of online resources. As Web 2.0 begins to emerge, customer will have to everything. This will be a great new opportunity for libraries.
He also questioned our role as "teachers". He said to check the ratio of staff members to community (we have around 150 staff members compared to a community size of 236,000). The goal should not be to teach, but to eliminate the barriers between customers and what they want.
He also says it's time to change the "come to us" model of library service and bring services out into the community and online.
He concludes that we can't wait for the industry ship to change direction, but must do it one library at a time.
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