Citation
(2003), "Changes", The Bottom Line, Vol. 16 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2003.17016cag.002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
Changes
Changes
Just in the last dozen years that I have been at my present position, my institution has gone from a primitive triplex of dedicated public CD workstations, dedicated public on-line catalog video terminals and staff video terminals to accessing the catalog and e-mail through several generations of personal computers in both public areas and all staff offices with no dedicated CD machines remaining. Repeatedly updating all of those workstations with newer, more powerful machines has obviously been an ongoing significant expense. Not to mention the staff costs in time and manpower to maintain, repair, upgrade and replace each machine. A tech staff that once consisted solely of me with support from a systems department 60 miles away grew first to include a student worker for basic duties. With the retirement of two long-time staffers, we were able to reassign their duties and consolidate those two positions into a higher paying one oriented to technology, and that student worker became the information technologist to locally facilitate digital projects. He was able to hire his own student worker to provide basic support. These slow but steady evolutionary changes have made up what one can call a revolution in equipment, staffing, resources and access.
Because these sorts of changes have occurred to varying degrees in all types of libraries throughout the world, libraries have greatly, but almost invisibly, expanded in the last couple of decades. We are not bound by physical walls or standard work schedules. People can use our resources – and in many instances interact with librarians – at the time and place of their choosing because of advances in technology. However, when they do so they do not necessarily realize or consider that they are visiting the "library". They are simply surfing the all-encompassing Web. Sometimes students can be heard boasting of never having been in the library.