Sometime between 1995 and 1998 (I can’t remember when), I went with my parents to a public meeting about a new main library. At that time, I thought it was a waste to have a huge main library as a majority of the city lives nowhere near downtown. While there are now more people living in downtown, the focus, in my opinion, should be to improve the branch libraries that will benefit many more people. All these years later, I still believe the same thing; spending millions of dollars on something that most people won’t use is a waste. How about increasing the hours that the branch libraries are open instead of a main library? Oh and the new main library still isn’t built; projected completion is 2011.

In any case, that’s not what this entry is about. Way back then, I told my parents that I thought the librarians of the future would be professional web surfers. While anyone can search for information, a professional is needed to:

• Use appropriate keywords to quickly find relevant information.
• Ascertain which results are from reputable sources (someone’s post on a forum is unlikely to be considered as an appropriate source for facts).
• Distill the potentially large number of search results into a usable form.

In some cases traditional librarians are still needed, such as the case for children’s librarians, but research librarians seem like they should deal with completely electronics resources as that is the most efficient way to find information (if you know where to look).