Future Service Models and the Convergence of Functions:

This article explores the future of reference librarianship within the context of the enabling technologies that will chart the course of develoment of libraries in the coming decades. It defines a typology of library types ranging from the traditional to the digital in order to explicate shifts in human/machine intermediation and issues of access to both primary and secondary information. It fiames developments in the emerging consultative, value-added model of service that will dominate the digital library in the context of the typology.