2007SpringQ1AResponse

Question #1A
Some reference librarians have observed that there is a substantial decline in the number of “right-answer” factual questions brought by patrons because they are easily answered on the Web. At the same time, librarians report an increased number of genuinely challenging “stumper” type questions. If this trend continues, what impact might it have on (1) how librarians are educated and (2) how information agencies are organized?

Jody: 1) Librarians would have to be educated to think, problem-solve, comprehend a variety of potential aspects to any situation and how they may interact, logically deduce and develop potentially useful theoretical conclusions. It would no longer be sufficient to retrieve material, but also to digest it, analyze it, and synthesize it into a reasonable summarization that is communicable to the user.

2) Information agencies would no longer be organized by categories of information or by format of information. It is more likely that they would be organized by groupings of interrelated fields, with the people central to each grouping being the most adept at comprehension and synthesis of the information retrieved in their areas.