What are WE going to do about the future?

There were a good many "library people" at a meeting in Albany yesterday. The Georgia Libraries 21st Century Speaker Series, sponsored by the Georgia Public Library Service, showcased two speakers. George Needham is a library strategist, who helps libraries prepare for and create their futures. Joan Frye Williams is a library futurist and designer of innovative library services.
They asked us some tough questions, such as why should we care about 21st century libraries...and what does that phrase mean, anyway? Why should we care about customer-focused service, innovative library services, emerging technologies, and 21st century skills? How can we move forward when we have such limited resources? Who's going to lead the way?
Well, they gave us the answers to all those questions, and more.
They advised us to stop doing non-productive things. They told us that work has to change with the times; that we have to use our skills in a new way and we have to work with the needs of our community.
They told us we need to "refresh frequently," that 20% needs to look different with 80% remaining the same. We need to keep our patrons interested!
We need to develop user-defined privileges for fast readers, slow readers, homeschoolers, reference-needers, etc. We were told that one-size does not fit all and we need to look at what our patrons really require.
And we need to look at how we can make all of this more fun. Make it easy to find what we have, use the same vocabulary as our patrons, SIMPLIFY.
They told us we need to build our relationships, participate in established groups like "Facebook" and "flickr." We need to not only use simplicity, but generosity, flexibility, and urgency in order to cultivate trust.
We need to show people our passion about what our library is all about and show them that what we're doing is worth doing.
All of us"library people" came away from that meeting with a big job ahead of us...understanding the challenges we are faced with, deciding and planning on how we will meet these challenges, thinking outside of the box and envisioning the 21st century possibilities.
Don't hold your breath, because we are all on this great, big, wonderful ride! The 21st century is upon us!
(Source: http://georgialibraries.org/)