Librarians are going to be essential persons in the 21st century. You heard it here! Personal librarians will replace personal trainers as essential to your health. Just read an interesting article in Inside Higher Education (3/23/2009) entitled “Knowledge Overload,” by Ken Coates who says that with the “deluge of information” that now confronts us (specifically students, scholars, librarians and the general public), we have by necessity become more focused and “reading less than in the past.” Faculty, in particular, have become more interested in scholarly productivity (read publication of articles) than in keeping up with the current literature that is available. This is a thoughtful article with comments from many of the people we know – Sandy Thatcher (Penn State Univ Press), Toby Green (OECD), Sally Morris (Morris Consulting), among others. You need to read this!
http://www.insidehigheredcom/views/2009/03/23/coates