Steering a Future Through Scenarios: Into the Academic Library of the Future

Scenario planning as a strategic tool for future planning was explored. The case study showed how the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Library applied the process to draw up its preferred future, and illustrated the importance of involving all stakeholders in every stage for the shared future to be acceptable to all.     

Discoverers in scientific citation data

Identifying the future influential papers among the newly published ones is an important yet challenging issue in bibliometrics. As newly published papers have no or limited citation history, linear extrapolation of their citation counts—which is motivated by the well-known preferential attachment mechanism—is not applicable. We translate the recently introduced notion of discoverers to the citation network setting, and show that there are authors who frequently cite recent papers that become highly-cited in the future; these authors are referred to as discoverers. We develop a method for early identification of highly-cited papers based on the early citations from discoverers. The results show that the identified discoverers have a consistent citing pattern over time, and the early citations from them can be used as a valuable indicator to predict the future citation counts of a paper. The discoverers themselves are potential future outstanding researchers as they receive more citations than average.     

Impact of the Internet on collection development: where are we now? Where are we headed? An informal study

Forty-one bibliographers described how the Internet has changed their work, and six library directors speculated about future change. Findings confirm that responding bibliographers collect Internet resources and make broad use of the Internet as a collection tool, while the directors see their libraries as well-positioned for an uncertain future.     

How can we build an impactful future for science in conservation? Essential next steps

This paper presents the outcomes of reflection and debate within the ICCROM Forum (2013) which explored how to build an impactful future for science in conservation. It sets out a number of recommendations to support a vibrant heritage science community with an impactful future. Key recommendations include: adopting the term heritage science as this reflects the growing use of the term in domains not exclusively conservation-focussed, positioning ICCROM as a leader in setting a vision for the heritage science community which would grow capacity, and support a high standard of academic research to underpin an impactful future for this growing discipline.     

Museums, plasticity, temporality

Throughout the 28th century, numerous philosophers of history and time have questioned the most ingrained of all our beliefs: does time progress in a linear way and is the future simply the next chapter in this narrative?² This essay proposes to rethink the future of museums outside of this narrative structure, one for which the future is reduced to words such as projection, prediction and prophecy. It asks: in an age of globalisation, can the museum still think of the future as the outcome of a chronological narrative? This essay takes one recent attempt (by the philosopher Catherine Malabou) to destabilise—again—this belief, and proposes to reveal the impact that this attempt could have on the museum's understanding of time and its place within it.     

Relational maintenance and caregiving in the grandparent-grandchild relationship

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between grandparents’ use of relational maintenance behaviors (RMB) and their young adult grandchildren’s willingness to serve as future caregivers for their grandparents. Undergraduate students (N = 209) completed a questionnaire in which they reported on a specific grandparent’s use of RMB and how willing they were to serve as future caregivers for that specific grandparent. Results of a multiple regression analysis provided partial support for the hypothesized positive relationships between grandparents’ use of RMB and grandchildren’s willingness to serve as future caregivers for their grandparents.     

Does Access Services Have a Future?

Abstract

Access Services appeared as an organizational unit in libraries relatively recently, in response to some very specific trends in the library environment. Will this organizational model survive as new trends affect libraries in the future? This essay discusses some of the essential features of access services and speculates as to how they will evolve and remain relevant in the future.     

A Global View of Technology:

The author looks into the future with reeard to the development of technology and how public library sew& will be im~actedT. elecommunications. databases. and scholar's work statioh are explored, as well as ideas on how the public library of the future will need to position itself in order to take full advantage of technology.     

Germany: With Our Libraries into a Better Future

In Germany, libraries are a voluntary task for the local authorities, not a legal obligation as in some other countries. Nonetheless, German public libraries—in spite of the challenges presented by the digital age and by society—are demonstrating stability in the face of change while simultaneously repositioning themselves regarding their role in the community. But how should this future be exactly shaped? What kind of library roles do German librarians and citizens envision? As an answer, the author describes the results of a representative study undertaken by the German Allensbach-Institut für Demoskopie on the future of libraries and discusses its possible implications as well as issues going beyond the survey. In the end, he presents six strong recipes for a successful library future which can be applied worldwide.     

On the crest of a wave: transforming the archival future

The profession of digital archivist is crystallising, fundamentally challenging traditional archival roles. The very nature of digital records also challenges the sustainability of archival systems and collections. Records that used to stay stable for decades in an analogue world now risk being lost or damaged within moments of creation. How should archivists react to these changes? Archivists have to lift ourselves out of our analogue environment and focus more effort on forging a new path, to reposition archives, archival institutions and archival practitioners more strategically for the future. To do this, archivists must resist the temptation to think that we and we alone – as people, as archivists or as today’s archivists as opposed to yesterday’s archivists – can come up with the ultimate solution to the world’s recordkeeping problems. Archivists must keep innovating, absolutely. But we also need to be agile and flexible, remembering that anything we come up with today will be superseded at some point in the future – increasingly, in the very near future. Archivists need to forge links with archives, systems and people in order to come up with approaches to records and archives care that remain usable now and flexible well into the future.     

Countering Information Overload: The Role of the Librarian

The problem of information overload in society, the feeling of being overwhelmed by large numbers and many types of publications, is one that has direct relevance for the role of the librarian both now and in the future. Librarians at present are clearly adept at assisting users in identifying and locating large numbers of publications. They will have to become more adept in the future in developing ways to assist users in narrowing or focussing their information searches to the most essential or key documents in a field of study. A number of the attempts that have been made in the library and information professions to help users to cope with information overload are examined as well as speculation about some future ways of dealing with the problem.     

论网格技术在图书馆中的应用

网格作为未来互联网的一种技术,已经成为人们日益瞩目的热点。那么究竟什么是网格技术?网格技术对互联网发展以及对图书馆事业会产生那些影响?本文拟就这一问题对网格与网格技术的含义、网格技术的基本特征以及网格技术在未来图书馆中的应用等内容进行简单探讨。     

The Information Commons: A Platform For Innovation

ABSTRACT

Information Commons have successfully served as platforms for innovations in facilities and service programs within libraries over the past 2 decades. In this article, the author makes a series of points concerning the significance and meaning of the Information Commons as a trend, including the strength of the concept as a bridge between the past and future of libraries, limitations in perceptions concerning Information Commons, and the ways that the trend may play out in the future.     

Future-Proofing the Library: Strategies for Acquisitions,Cataloging, and Collection Development

The future is not perfectly predictable. However, as serialists it is our job to predict the future in some very real ways, and current trends give us valuable tools for at least figuring out a range of possible future scenarios. Certain trends in particular point to highly likely developments in the near future, and wise libraries will position themselves to deal with those developments. They include a continued drift on the part of researchers away from printed resources, from the library catalog, and from non-unique collections, with a concomittant rise in the importance of unique collections and locally-produced scholarships. Libraries can future-proof themselves by, in part, turning decisively away from resources and services that patrons are abandoning and towards those resources and services that are likely to grow in importance.     

图书馆为未成年人思想道德建设服务的实践与探索

未成年人是祖国的未来,他们的思想道德水准,将直接关系到中华民族的整体素质,关系到国家前途和民族命运。为了吸引少儿读者走进图书馆、认识图书馆、从而利用图书馆,充分发挥图书馆对未成年人的社会教育职能,结合桐乡市图书馆工作实际,探讨图书馆为未成年人思想道德建设服务的实践与探索。     

Priorities for publishing research

The author suggests a wide-ranging research agenda, including applying and safeguarding copyright, increasing literacy, comparing the appropriate uses of the printed word and other media, understanding language itself, assisting authors to get their work into print, improving statistics about the industry, predicting the future of suppliers as well as publishers themselves, improving distribution, and influencing the likely future of the information superhighway. J. Kendrick Noble was formerly publishing industry analyst for Paine Webber, Inc.     

Relationships among the communication skills

This article explores the potential as well as the procedures for microteaching as a valuable and effective aid in training future teachers of speech.     

An introduction

The future of radio is now much less obvious and clear than it appeared 10 years ago. Instead of a transition from analog to digital audio broadcasting (DAB), there is a selection of alternative technological options for digital audio delivery.

This article studies how 43 people in key positions related to the radio industry in four European countries and Canada view the future of radio and which delivery technologies they consider will be most successful. In addition, it analyzes the motives and reasons why certain technologies are seen as more promising. Finally, it presents different future scenarios for radio media.     

Information,future time perspectives,and young adolescent girls: Concerns about education and jobs

This article examines how young adolescent girls manage their information seeking when dealing with concerns related to future jobs and future education. The study found that information seeking is influenced by the fact that girls think they are “too young” or it is “too early” for them to get answers to their questions. They are also constrained by their perceptions that adults, such as parents, teachers, and librarians, think it is “not the right time” for information seeking. The findings are compared with those which investigate adolescents' perspectives of the future and the article addresses implications for professional practice.     

从NSTL战略定位到最新进展及未来发展规划

保障科技文献资源提供服务是创新型国家战略基础。在当前学术文献采购经费攀升的环境下,只有国家才能保证文献的服务,这是国家科技数字图书馆NSTL的价值所在。文章从战略定位和最新进展到未来发展规划,概述NSTL的全貌。具体地说,首先,简述NSTL的成立背景;其次,是NSTL整个体系,就NSTL的运营体制、NSTL的科技文献资源种类和业务流程、提供的服务及系统架构等进行描述;最后,简要地介绍NSTL未来的发展规划。