JISC: Libraries of the Future

The JISC Library of the Future Campaign.
This video, launched, last week, on the 17th July, 2009, marks the beginning of an interesting , and hopefully stimulating campaign by the UK JISC to explore the issues around the enormous impact of ICT on the academic library in particular, and the concept of the library in general.

JISC, have a web page on the campaign, here: among other things, it talks about:

"In an information world in which Google apparently offers us everything, what place is there for the traditional, and even the digital, library?

In a library environment which is increasingly moving to the delivery of online rather than print resources, what of the academic library’s traditional place at the heart of campus life? What about the impact of repositories and open access on the delivery of library resources? And the need to digitise and make more widely accessible key scholarly resources? And what of the calls for libraries to play a central role in the promotion of ‘information literacy’?

Through ‘Libraries of the Future’, JISC is hoping to explore these and many other questions, to open up - with partner organisations and librarians themselves - a debate about the future of the academic and research library. The theme will encompass a variety of activities – events and printed resources⁵, interactive Web 2.0 services⁶, podcast interviews⁷, and so on – but encouraging debate and discussion"