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Vision 2008, a gathering of technology and library experts, was an unprecedented industry think‐tank developed by 3M Library Systems as a means by which the future of our libraries could be projected. Held in October 1998, it was the first of many fora 3M plans to host as it moves toward the year 2008. Under the direction of Northeast Consulting Resources, Inc and its Future Mapping® process, participants worked together to map out a best scenario for the libraries of the future. The information exchanged at Vision 2008 will help 3M continue to develop innovations to assist libraries in meeting their goals for the future.

The purpose of this paper is to review librarianship in different eras and throw light on its foreseeable future, as seen through the eyes of new librarians in Pakistan.

The paper is based on a literature search, website visits, personal communication with related experts and interviews of future librarians. A purposive sample of 20 students of the final semester from the Department of Library and Information Science, University of the Punjab was chosen.

The electronic environment of the 21st century will demand a range of skills from librarians. Technology alone cannot help bring about the required changes. Attitudes, practices and policies need to change if libraries are to truly benefit themselves and their community of users by the application of new technologies.

The research is mostly based on a small sample of future librarians” perception and researcher”s perception acquired through literature review and personal communication with experts.

The paper can be helpful for both working and future library professionals in planning their professional future tracks.

The paper provides an overview of librarianship in different eras and provides a thorough understanding of the foreseeable future as seen through the eyes of newly qualified Pakistani librarians.

This research highlights the scenarios that might serve as a strategic vision to describe a future beyond the current library, one which both guides provosts and creates a map for the transformation of human resources and technology in the university research libraries. The scenarios offer managerial leaders an opportunity to envision new roles for librarians and staff which brings a much needed focus on the development of human resources as well as a thought-stream to understand decisions which effectively and systematically move the organization toward a strategic vision.

These scenarios also outline possible future directions research libraries could take by focusing on perspectives from library directors, provosts, and administrators for human resources. The four case study scenarios introduce potential future roles for librarians and highlight the unsustainability of the current scholarly communications model as well as uncertain factors related to the political, social, technical, and demographic issues facing campuses. Given the changes institutions face, scenarios allow directors to include more uncertainty when developing and articulating a vision. These scenarios may start a discussion, before a strategic planning process, to sharpen the evaluations and measures necessary to monitor achievements that define the value of the library.

The purpose of this paper is to outline strategies and approaches in the workforce plan to address skill shortages in the university of Melbourne library to ensure that staff have the appropriate skills for the future.

The objectives were achieved by developing a workforce plan to identify skills gaps, and then to work with training providers to develop a training plan. There was collaboration with two TAFE colleges to deliver accredited courses to staff to develop the skills required, ensuring key competencies were achieved and the staff received accreditation for their learning

The workforce plan showed an aging workforce but also skill shortages across the library. If the library was to be able to deliver services to meet the needs of future students then it needed to develop training programs to enable staff to develop the appropriate skill sets required to meet the needs of the library in the future. A brief survey of participants of the course discovered staff found the course very useful, although not all staff were able to utilize their new skills as effectively as they might in their current roles. This showed a need to review and re‐write position descriptions for staff.

The outcomes and implications for the future are to ensure there is: an ongoing staff development and training program in place for staff to enable them to continually update their skills as required to meet the needs of the library; that staff have opportunities to utilize the new skills they have acquired to improve and deliver library services; and that staff have the appropriate time to learn and develop themselves

The paper shows that some of the key competencies required by staff are not always learnt in the workplace, or in universities, but can be delivered by vocational training providers such as a TAFE college. The idea of working with TAFE teachers to develop and adapt a training program is quite a different approach to solving this skill gap problem.

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the future of academic libraries in the era of new user needs, new skills for staff and services offered. The literature shows the evolution of new technologies and the implications they have on the staff, library services and new user needs. The discussions in this paper are surrounded by conceptualization of what the library products and services will be in future academic libraries. It also looks at future studies that explore opportunities for librarians to advance their professional role.

This is a literature-based conceptual paper that draws on a wide range of literature that hypothetically looks at the future roles of professional librarians, the collection, services and the evolution of technology on the new user needs.

The library today will give the basis for the future librarian’s role, the emerging user needs and impact of service delivery. Technological advances have also affected the establishment of library systems and services offered. The emerging future roles will generally depend on how advanced the libraries are in the region or country including Kenya.

This paper adds a flexible approach to the skills, services as a role of future librarians.

The purpose of this paper is to involve readers in an exercise in conceptualizing the library workplace of the future and how to prepare librarians to be successful in these future scenarios.

This paper introduces a visualization exercise that invites readers to contemplate the likelihood and desirability of five scenarios for libraries of the future. Readers are also invited to create a new scenario. Readers then can reflect on the skills and aptitudes librarians would need to have or acquire in order to succeed in one of the scenarios. The method involves visualization, reflection, and self-assessment.

The authors have tested this exercise in in-service training with public, academic, and special librarians as well as with students in graduate library and information science courses. The end result is deep conversation, engagement, and sharing.

The authors have observations on the effectiveness of this future exercise with students and practicing librarians but did not structure its use as a research project. In years of attending conferences and delivering over 600 conference presentations, the authors have yet to observe a similar future exercise being employed.

This exercise promotes reflection and discussion. It enables librarians to consider these scenarios on their own or in groups of varying sizes. It has application in understanding the complexity of futurism and how it might impact their future lives. And it emphases that individual librarians have some degree of independence in how they respond to change and, ultimately, a future much different from the present.

Libraries are social institutions and their services reflect and respond to changes in society. Recent changes in governance around the world, warfare, the refugee crisis, and episodes of violence have contributed to tension. These are the times when librarians are called on more than ever to respond. Considering possible and improbable futures and one’s response to those futures are helpful in preparing one’s professional response in these difficult times.

This paper introduces an original model for discussing many possible futures for libraries and for librarians to consider their roles in those futures.

We sometimes view politics as a dirty business that is nevertheless necessary in order to accomplish major initiatives like implementing new technology in the library. We wish that, without lobbying or tooting our own horn, the high quality of our staff's work, ideas, and proposals would be recognized and rewarded with the resources and political support they deserve and that are needed to create the library of the future for our users.

This paper aims to determine if the digital humanities technique of topic modeling would reveal interesting patterns in a corpus of library-themed literature focused on the future of libraries and pioneer a collaboration model in librarian-led digital humanities projects. By developing the project, librarians learned how to better support digital humanities by actually doing digital humanities, as well as gaining insight on the variety of approaches taken by researchers and commenters to the idea of the future of libraries.

The researchers collected a corpus of over 150 texts (articles, blog posts, book chapters, websites, etc.) that all addressed the future of the library. They ran several instances of latent Dirichlet allocation style topic modeling on the corpus using the programming language R. Once they produced a run in which the topics were cohesive and discrete, they produced word-clouds of the words associated with each topic, visualized topics through time and examined in detail the top five documents associated with each topic.

The research project provided an effective way for librarians to gain practical experience in digital humanities and develop a greater understanding of collaborative workflows in digital humanities. By examining a corpus of library-themed literature, the researchers gained new insight into how the profession grapples with the idea of the future and an appreciation for topic modeling as a form of literature review.

Topic modeling a future-themed corpus of library literature is a unique research project and provides a way to support collaboration between library faculty and researchers from outside the library.

Academic library consortia activity has become an integral part of academic libraries’ operations. Consortia have come to assert considerable bargaining power over publishers and have provided libraries with considerable economic advantage. They interact with publishers both as consumers of publishers’ products, with much stronger bargaining power than individual libraries hold, and, increasingly, as rival publishers themselves. Are consortia changing the relationship between academic libraries and publishers? Is the role of academic library consortia placing academic libraries in a position that should and will attract the attention of competition policy regulators? Competition policy prohibits buying and selling cartels that can negatively impact the free market on which the Canadian economic system, like other Western economies, depends. Competition policy as part of economic policy is, however, only relevant where we are concerned with aspects of the market economy. Traditionally, public goods for the greater social and cultural benefit of society are not considered part of the market economic system. If the activities of academic library consortia are part of that public good perspective, competition policy may not be a relevant concern. Using evidence gained from in-depth interviews from a national sample of university librarians and from interviews with the relevant federal government policy makers, this research establishes whether library consortia are viewed as participating in the market economy of Canada or not. Are consortia viewed by librarians and government as serving a public good role of providing information for a greater social and cultural benefit or are they seen from a market-economic perspective of changing power relations with publishers? Findings show government has little in-depth understanding of academic library consortia activity, but would most likely consider such activity predominantly from a market economic perspective. University librarians view consortia from a public good perspective but also as having an important future role in library operations and in changing the existing scholarly publishing paradigm. One-third of librarian respondents felt that future consortia could compete with publishers by becoming publishers and through initiatives such as open source institutional repositories. Librarians also felt that consortia have had a positive effect on librarians’ professional roles through the facilitation of knowledge building and collaboration opportunities outside of the home institution.