Information Overload and Information Seekers:

Information service professionals face two fundamental challenges that, taken together, point a direction for service development. The first of these is information overload caused by the proliferation of available data and publications and ever-morecomorehensive and wides~reada utomated means of access to them. The 'second is the fact thai most information seeking transpires with little help from librarians, who have ccnsistently failed to establish themselves as primary information professionals. The following discussion, limited in its implications to public and academic libraries, considers the relationship of these challenges to one another and describes a vision of the future mission of information services, made concrete through specific recommendations. Central to this vision are ideas set forth in two recent books: Value-Added Processes in Information Systems, by Robert S. Taylor, and New Priorities for the Universiv: Meeting Society's Needs for Applied Knowledge and Competent Individuals, by Ernest A. Lynton and Sandra E. Elrnan.