Given your own experience with higher education and information technology, is it likely that instruction will change notably in the near future? If so, what might be the impact upon the academic library? How should we respond?
One of the major roles of the public service librarian is bibliographic instruction. Is it likely that the methods of delivering this service will change notably in the future? Should academic librarians have more formal instruction/experience in instructional technology?
We have already discussed several of the issues associated with this trend/problem.
Budd notes that "instructors are likely to require the assistance of librarians to help them structure at least a portion of the course presentation [in the DE course]. Does this seem reasonable to you?
A somewhat common teacher response to DE and library resources is to substitute a textbook and some WWW sites for library resources. What might we do to change this?
Recent changes in copyright law clearly indicate that the information, entertainment, and publishing industries have much more clout in Washington than do educators, including librarians. What, if anything, might academic librarians do to make copyright law less restrictive for educational users?
Some suggest that colleges and universities should consider academic research "work for hire," and hold the copyright to that work so that it can be made more freely available at reasonable cost. Your reactions?
The major problem with scholarly communication is that academic libraries can afford to purchase/lease or make available a declining portion of the scholarly record. What might libraries do to counter this problem?
To what degree will these services be different in the future than they are now? Can you provide some examples of new or different services?
Budd spends some time discussing negatives associated with information as a commodity that is bought and sold. If this is a bad thing, what might we do about it?
Do you think that the academic library will be a more attractive or a less attractive place to work in the future? Why? What should we do to make things better?
