Tonight: Some thoughts on german libraries

fäb am 26. April 2008 um 0:11 Uhr | 0 Kommentare

I have to admit that the whole german discussion about this so-called/mis-called “Library 2.0″ bores me a bit right now. Dozens of submitted theses in german universities covering the same scope, pointing tentative in a direction that everyone with a halfway healthy portion of understanding already know.
The future will be in the Web, right, okay. Got it.

I’m not worried about the publicly predicted demise of libraries. They move slowly, act dull and apparently want to put themselves into time capsules for re-animation on the day the Google empire will return into sand. Despite the shattering changes they have to go through in the last years, they seem not very keen on getting the ticket for the wild trip into information utopia. Especially the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin and its OPAC stresses the appropriate framework of user2library relationships in a manner that should be socially punished. No future-heading library should be allowed to trust only onto their holdings and hardly care for the people they’re there for, let alone not develop user-friendly services ( Death to the checkout module )
How hard is it to send a book overdue warning email 2 days in advance, guys?

So I think, wanted or not, we’ll spend many more years with these antediluvian libraries. The dilemma is that those who have or easily could get access to the rich resources (bibliographic and any other library-related data), don’t use it. Or can’t use it because they have dubious long-time contracts with ILS vendors, poor budgets and by the majority sluggish staff.

My point here is that I’m getting a bit confused. Many iniatives, standards, open sources and bright ideas fly around the globe, and the all but complete disregard of the federal German library landscape for those tendencies frustrates me a lot and doesn’t really add to my idea of a fullfilled future job situation in this area.