Challenges Of Library Essay

Nowadays, the dramatic changes in society, exponential advances in technology and globalization of ‘everything’ are easily recognizable one decade into the 21st Century. The United States is no longer world leader in a global society not even in education. Tablet devices are replacing laptop computers as the standard mobile computing device for the most continuously connected society in history in a ‘post-PC’ world. Nowhere is change more evident than in the librarian profession. We are seeing commercial competition for information access and delivery services arise routinely, making ineffective attempts to serve young library customers whose needs we don’t understand, being inundated with technology beyond our capacity to keep pace, while knowing our younger customers are more technologically savvy than us. We are experiencing library closures everywhere and rampant privatization of library management, regardless of our best achievements. Affects on libraries are obviously more than just the bad economy based on daily reports of unforeseen changes in all of the external factors that influence libraries and librarians. Information technology has affected the skills and responsibilities of the librarians and academicians as well.

Whether you overcome these challenges will determine whether you become a 21st Century librarian, and ultimately whether you, your library and your profession survive. Some of the challenges are Broadest Spectrum of Library Customers in History. The six generations (including that Gen Next of adolescents) that comprise 21st Century library customers create significant differences in library service demands, with the most drastic difference between the Great Generation and the Millennials. This drastic difference creates a heavy demand on librarians to continue traditional library services for some ‘patrons’, while creating new technology-based services