When we defend the future of reference work in libraries, we say that ready reference is no longer needed, but research (“real”) reference will remain important. Ready reference has been replaced by Internet search engines that provide fast access to factual data that used to be hidden in volumes of indexed books. But digging up material relevant to a subject is a specialized skill that requires human intervention. So reference is safe. Or so we say.
In a February 2010, article draft by Evan D. Brown titled Copyright on the Semantic Web: Divergence of Author and Work, Evan gives the following example of the semantic web:
Perhaps one can best understand the Semantic Web by looking at particular instances of the technology at work. Take for example the free service calledZemanta. This service offers a Firefox plugin that assists bloggers in gathering content to assemble into posts. As the blog author writes, Zemanta “reads” the content and in real time suggests images to embed, links to insert, and lists of related articles to include. It does this automatically, looking to a number of sources of data such as Wikipedia and Flickr that are encoded in a way to make the data contained within them “broadcast” their meaning and relevance to Zemanta. The technology relegates the drudgery of finding related content to the machines, freeing up the creative attention of the blogger to focus on content.
This is automated research-style reference. As more of our dusty tomes are digitized, services like Zemanta will be able to find and offer increasingly obscure yet relevant and fully cited information. I call this the death of reference as we know it. The days when reference librarians are primarily the golden retrievers of information are numbered. The future of the library reference desk is one of consulting. The primary duties of librarians will revolve around verifying the quality of the results generated by services like Zemanta and teaching our customers how to verify information themselves.
The Public Librarian
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This is a major shift for many librarians. I often hear the unending mantra, “We only make information available. We may report the evaluations of others, but we never make the evaluations ourselves.” This standard leaves no reason for librarians to remain employed. Nor does it call for anything beyond a high school education. This job will soon be performed by Internet services better, faster, and at lower cost than by any live human.
ReplyDeleteThe reference librarians of the future will be information consultants. They will build the infrastructure that automated information retrieval services are, in turn, built upon. They will be the quality control of those services. They will teach people defensive information access (ie., defensive driving for the information superhighway). This will require breadth of knowledge and analytic skill, both of which are best acquired through advanced degrees.
In other words, we will do what our best reference librarians have always done and need the education they have always advocated. The future at the library reference desk is all about letting go of something that was easy to do but never really essential to our work and focusing instead on what makes us librarians.