Snapshot of future library priorities

Image CC from Open Clipart Library

If you’re looking for a quick snapshot view of what the future priorities in public and academic libraries are, you may want to take a look at two brief reports on this topic.

The data have been gathered from a survey of public and academic libraries, and the reports are divided into UK, Germany and the Netherlands. The American reports were released earlier apparently.

Although there are some differences in predicted priorities and future changes between public and academic libraries, there are also similarities – particularly around a predicted increase of online library use and digital resources.

In terms of communication, academic library staff prefer listservs or emails lists as their top source of information followed by discussions with colleagues, whereas public library staff prefer discussions with colleagues followed by websites. This is relevant for my work as I wish to communicate well with staff in all library sectors and so it’s important to maintain several different communication channels.