Gorky said that books are the ladder of human progress. We can think that the library is an important innovation in the process of the establishment of human society. Professor Sohail Inayatallah, a world-renowned futurist and now working at Tamkang University in Taiwan Province Province, published an article entitled "The Future of Libraries: From Knowledge Guardian to Creator" in February 20141-65438 of Futurist magazine.
In recent years, he has called librarians from all over the world (especially Australia) to discuss many times, and used his causal hierarchical analysis method to analyze and conceive different scenarios of library's future development. The index to measure the performance of the library may transition from the current book circulation to the future visits (including library visits and website visits). The library will undergo systematic changes. Today's libraries are basically books and materials. In the future, there may be workshops, 3D printing equipment, braincaps, paper books, e-books and so on. Therefore, the space design of the library will be different. At present, the knowledge organization in the library is decided by experts, and the future library will be managed by librarians and the community public, who will jointly create knowledge. If the current librarians are the custodians of the collected materials, then the future librarians are like innovators in the knowledge garden.
Sohail Inayatallah and the librarians attending the seminar finally summed up four scenarios about the future library.
One is "digital dinosaur". It means that if it can't adapt to the digital trend, the library will die like a dinosaur because it can't adapt to the changed environment. In the future, the library will become quieter and quieter, and fewer readers will borrow books from home. The average age of librarians will be getting older and older, and the budget of libraries will be decreasing. Of course, in rural areas and poor countries with poor Internet access, old-fashioned libraries will still exist.
The second is "one-stop". The function of the library has been expanded, and it will become the center of the community. Although fewer people borrow books, more people visit libraries (including electronic libraries), and librarians and community people work together to create information and knowledge. In the seminar held by the library in the future, people will discuss some topics that people care about, such as how the elderly make financial planning, how to make interactive "wearable books" by using 3D printing technology and so on. There is a national library in Australia, and its number of visitors has exceeded the book circulation, so they wisely put forward that the future library budget should be linked to the number of visitors, not to the book circulation.
The third is "a refreshing world". This is a relatively distant thing. At this time, librarians will cooperate with artificial intelligence technology companies to create a virtual reality education space, which is very attractive, such as the simulation of major historical events and the realistic display of future prospects. The core of the second and third scenarios is "trust"-people firmly believe that librarians will work for the benefit of the people, not for the benefit. In other words, in the market-oriented world, the library is still preserved as a public welfare space. In the future, charities will be particularly important to libraries, because with their generous support, libraries can provide free services, and once libraries charge fees, the knowledge gap between the public will widen.
For example, young authors can publish books in the library first, and community users of the library can "like" these new books to promote them. In addition, in the "publishing" of interactive and wearable books, libraries can try first and become pioneers.