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Will corporate libraries survive or thrive?

The latest edition of the CILIP Gazette carries a very interesting article by Graham Beastall of Soutron asking "Will your library survive or thrive?"

Graham argues that in 2010 the corporate library "...has the opportunity to become one of the few constructs in the corporate body that can provide a sense of continuity"

Given the developments that we've already seen with another two law firm libraries deciding to outsource their library services to Integreon I'm not sure how many law librarians will agree with this statement. Graham goes on to look at some of the key areas for development during 2010.

The first area Graham discusses in Integration Graham argues that "...Librarians who can demonstrate more than a simple OPAC and offer the flexibility within their library systems to do more than store bibliographic data will find an ally" I absolutely agree with this I'd also argue as Graham does that Library managers should be looking at all the systems their responsible for and how they can be integrated across the organisation.

Graham then argues that Library managers will begin to develop a new relationship with technology as users expectations rise, especially with the Web 2.0 functionality that is now available, set againsts a backdrop of limited funding and an economy that "...will inhibit investment in new systems"

The article then discusses in some detail the developmen of Open Source Software. I'm not going to discuss this now as this is the subject of a presentation I'm delivering at "Managing your law firm library and information service through challenging times"

This is a really interesting article, which all corporate librarians should read for some thoughts from a supplier on the challenges facing corporate librarians when working with technology.

Full post as published by LI Issues on February 12, 2010 (boomark / email).