The Academic Library Nexus

Abstract

his talk might be considered about documents and their availability. But its topic is really the relationship between data and the recipient, and the librqry and its institutional information systems. We need to keep in mind that information is not property of documents, or of bibliographic records, but the relationship between data and the recipient. Increasingly, the burden and the responsibility of libraries in the Information Age is to deal with that relationship. In her letter of invitation, Lynch proposed that I share with you my vision of the future role of academic libraries. In the course of preparing for this lecture, perhaps in vain effort to improve my vision, I ran across an anecdote about Winston Churchill that says nearly all I have to say about the future of libraries. After World War II and his stint as prime minister, Winston Churchill was invited to give the commencement address at his old school, Harrow, and decided he ought to oblige. So he went, weathered lengthy and laudatory introduction, got to his feet and said to the graduating class, Nevah give up! and sat down. 1 I would emulate Mr. Churchill, but I, alas, was asked for lecture, not an address. An address, according to the current edition of the Random House College Dictionary, is a statement. A lecture, on the other hand, is II discourse read . . . especially for instruction or to set forth some subject. If I were more like Winston Churchill, I would say that the future role of academic libraries is what we are prepared to make of it in the next three to five years and sit down. As I have few of his talents, for the next thirty minutes you will hear some more or less connected thoughts about the deinstitutionalization of libraries and what we might do in the next three to five years to shape the future role of academic research libraries. I plan to draw examples from the sdences, including medicine, because of their greater intensity of experimentation and change in information management. But I hope you will look beyond the particulars to the essence, to the application of the principles and concepts to your setting and specialty. Also let me insert here caveat about the remarks to follow. These opinions do not in any way, directly or indirectly, reflect any thinking or planning within the National Library of Medicine with respect to the present or future roles of libraries generally, or itself particularly, as national library. On the other hand, the National Library of Medicine is committed to supporting the development of at least four prototype integrated academic information management systems based on the concepts and principles described in the report prepared by the Association of American Medical Colleges titled, Academic Infonnation in the Academic Health Sciences Center. 2 Through its grant program, it is also strongly encouraging research and development of variety of efforts to bring about paradigm change in the roles of libraries in health information dissemination and management. It is important to know that the interdisciplinary committee, whose thinking formed the basis of that AAMC report, had in mind no single vision and no single model. Neither the length of the path, the