The Sheila Variations

"Information Management Specialists"

I suspect this isn't quite the trend the Times think it is. It's clearly true for journals and other periodical literature, but most research still depends on physical books. Maybe I'm a luddite, but I'd be shocked if books disappeared completely.

skinnydan:

Don't think my dad was actually looking for the answer - I'm sure he already knows it. It was a contemplative moment, thinking about the future of his own profession.

And I'm a luddite, too. I can't imagine books going away.

Books won't go away, they'll just become very expensive.

It's interesting to trace what *did* happen to the blacksmithing trade, in the sense of where the comparable work went:

1)Some of it remained with traditional blacksmith: horseshoeing and some small-scale businesses.
2)Some of it (making of various metal products) went to factories, resulting in a splitting of skill levels--some lower than the traditional blacksmith (stamping machine operator), some comparable or arguably higher (tool & die maker), and some more of a symbolic/knowledge-work nature (industrial engineer, production scheduler)
3)Some of it took on an entirely different nature--horses replaced by cars, ergo a need for auto repairmen--general skill levels problably comparable but more dependent on literacy (reading of manuals) and ability to learn new things

Not sure how this plays out with the librarians...I do think, though, that librarians in general are being far too eager to give up on books.

That's a nice piece of analysis, David. Well done.

On books: I don't see books (or magazines) going away just yet.

Books are truly random access--dive into it anywhere you like, if you like.

Books have the best and easiest user interface there is: just pick it up and employ Eyeball, Mk.I.

Books don't have components that fail (okay, badly bound ones do, but they're fairly rare in my experience).

Books--at least once they're printed--don't require near as much in the way of infrastructure. All you need is sufficient light, and there are plenty of ways to get that.

Books (in general) don't give you the kind of eye-strain that reading on a screen does.

There *is* an emerging technology known as e-ink or e-paper that seems to address the readability problem...the ink electronically forms itself on a flat sheet, and is supposed to be easy to read even in bright sunlight. Power is used only when changing pages, not when reading a static page, and also the sheet can be made fairly flexible. When this technology matures, which is likely to happen fairly soon IMNSHO, it's going to make for some big changes. I expect much more impact on magazines and newspapers than on book, for two reasons: (1)timeliness matters more for periodicals, and (2)searching features are more useful for things like classified ads.

Dearest: I might as well weigh in on the situation written up in the 'newspaper of record'. The library that was closing [in Cal state system I think] was an undergraduate library--which often function in the same way that Children's rooms do in public libraries--a place to keep the kiddies quiet. They also have 'reserve' collections for heavily used course materials. Much of that type of material is now available online--undergards can have access to this stuff without actually going to the library--thus there was less need for a special duplicative service. There is, however, no evidence, anywhere, that anyone would actually seek out a book to read on line, rather than the traditional print version. The librarian quoted in the article is a fool. love, Dad