Academic Library Autopsy Report, 2050
By Brian T. Sullivan
"Insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal."
―Shakespeare
The academic library has died. Despite early diagnosis, audacious denial in the face of its increasingly severe symptoms led to its deterioration and demise. The academic library died alone, largely neglected and forgotten by a world that once revered it as the heart of the university. On its deathbed, it could be heard mumbling curses against Google and something about a bygone library guru named Ranganathan.
Although the causes of death are myriad, the following autopsy report highlights a few of the key factors.
1. Book collections became obsolete. Fully digitized collections of nearly every book in the world rendered physical book collections unnecessary. Individual students now pay for subscriptions to any of several major digital-book vendors for unlimited access. The books may be viewed online at any time or downloaded to a portable device. Some colleges have opted for institutional subscriptions to digital-book collections, managed by their information-technology departments. Most of these collections originated in physical libraries, which signed their own death warrants with deals to digitize their books.
2. Library instruction was no longer necessary. To compete with a new generation of search engines, database vendors were forced to create tools that were more user-friendly, or else risk fading into obscurity. As databases became more intuitive and simpler to use, library instruction in the use of archaic tools was no longer needed. Almost all remaining questions could be answered by faculty (see No. 3) or information-technology staff (see No. 4). It was largely the work of academic librarians that led to most of these advances in database technology.
3. Information literacy was fully integrated into the curriculum. As faculty incorporated information literacy into their teaching, it became part of the general curriculum of colleges. It was the persistence of librarians, who in the academic library's dying days lost faith in their ability to impart useful knowledge to students, that led to the universal adoption of campuswide information-literacy standards drawn up by the Association of College and Research Libraries. Librarians also played a key role in the development of the new curricula that included information literacy.
4. Libraries and librarians were subsumed by information-technology departments. Library buildings were converted into computer labs, study spaces, and headquarters for information-technology departments. Collection development became a mere matter of maintaining database subscriptions recommended by faculty. Cataloging became the exclusive purview of the vendors of digital-book-and-journal collections (who frequently hired former librarians to assist with the process). Some members of the remnant of former librarians have now taken jobs with their colleges' information-technology departments.
5. Reference services disappeared. They were replaced by ever-improving search engines and social-networking tools, along with information-technology help desks that were relatively inexpensive to run. Without the need to worry about faculty rank, tenure, and professional pay grades, most colleges are reporting about the same level of student satisfaction for a fraction of the price. It was librarians who first provided evidence―through the development of "tiered reference" services, in which initial questions were fielded by nonlibrarians―that queries could be answered by low-wage employees (including student workers) with minimal training.
6. Economics trumped quality. Some administrators admit that the old model of libraries and librarians yielded outcomes theoretically superior to those of the new model: personal service, professional research assistance, access to top-quality information sources. But so few students were taking full advantage of the available resources that the services were no longer economically justifiable. Ever since it became so easy and inexpensive to find adequate resources, paying significantly more for the absolute best was no longer an option for perpetually cash-strapped colleges. It was the widespread adoption of early tools like Wikipedia and Google Scholar by librarians that opened the door to the realization that traditional academic libraries and librarians were an expendable luxury.
At the same time, the death of the academic library is being hailed by many as progress and the logical next step in the evolution of information.
In summary, it is entirely possible that the life of the academic library could have been spared if the last generation of librarians had spent more time plotting a realistic path to the future and less time chasing outdated trends while mindlessly spouting mantras like "There will always be books and libraries" and "People will always need librarians to show them how to use information." We'll never know now what kind of treatments might have worked. Librarians planted the seeds of their own destruction and are responsible for their own downfall.
Brian T. Sullivan is an instructional librarian at Alfred University.
中文译文如下：
图书馆尸检报告，2050
原地址：http://chronicle.com/article/Academic-Library-Autopsy/125767/
作者：Brian T. Sullivan
译者：Nalsi
大学图书馆已经死掉了。尽管早就开始寻医问药，可是它又肆无忌惮的否认越来越严重的病情，这让它病入膏肓，进而一命呜呼。大学图书馆独自死去，那个曾经把它尊崇为“大学的心脏”的世界，此刻也几乎忘掉了它。在它行将就木之际，你能听到它对Google的低声诅咒，和它低声呼喊一个叫“阮冈纳赞”的图书馆先知的喃喃自语。
它死掉的原因多种多样，但是这份尸检报告将强调一下几个重要的因素。
1. 馆藏图书无人问津。世界上几乎每一本书都变成了数字化资源，这让实体的图书馆藏变得毫无必要。每个学生都能在任何一个主要的电子书供应商那里付费订阅，进行没有限制的访问。他们可以随时在网上看书，或者把书下载到一个便携设备中。一些大学选择了机构订阅的电子书馆藏，这个资源由它们的信息技术部门管理。绝大多数这些馆藏都源自实体的图书馆，这些图书馆在同意对馆藏进行数字化的死亡证书上签下了自己的名字。
2. 图书馆培训多此一举。为了和新一代的搜索引擎竞争，数据库商被迫开发了新的工具，这些工具对用户更加友好，否则，它们就只有被淘汰的命运。数据库变得更加聪明、简单，图书馆对使用过时工具的培训就变得不必要了。几乎所有的问题都可以由大学教员（参见3）和信息技术职员（参见4）来回答。而正是大学图书馆员的工作引发了数据库技术的改进。
3. 信息素质进入大学课程。大学教员把信息素质放到他们的教学中，它成为大学课程的一部分。大学图书馆员，在大学图书馆行将就木之际，不再相信他们能够向学生传授有用的知识，因此在他们的坚持之下，大学开始采用由大学和研究性图书馆协会（Association of College and Research Libraries）制定的、校际统一的信息素质标准。另外，学校制定新的课程大纲，包含信息素质的内容，在这件事情上，图书馆员也起到了重要的作用。
4. 图书馆和图书馆员进入信息技术部门。图书馆建筑变成电脑实验室、学习空间和信息技术部门的办公室。馆藏建设变成纯粹的对教员推荐数据库的维护。编目全部由电子书刊的供应商提供（它们经常聘请曾经的图书馆员帮助编目）。一些曾经的图书馆员担任大学信息技术部门的职位。
5. 参考咨询工作销声匿迹。它们被不断改进的搜索引擎和社会网络工具，以及相对便宜的信息技术帮助台（information-technology help desks）所取代。大学不再需要考虑职员的等级、职位和报酬的问题，绝大多数大学都用很少的钱就获得了和别人一模一样的服务满意度。曾经，是图书馆员首先证明（通过开发“分层咨询”服务，即问题首先由非图书馆员处理），用户的咨询可以由工资较低、受训练较少的职员来完成。
6. 经济战胜了质量。一些管理者承认，传统图书馆和图书馆员的模式（比如个人化服务、专业研究助理、以及购买质量最好的信息资源），其服务在理论上要好于新的模式。但是很少有学生能够利用图书馆的资源，因而这种模式在经济上是行不通的。寻找足够的资源已经变得非常方便而便宜，因此对于资金不断紧张的大学来说，花一大笔钱来寻求最好的方法是不应予以考虑的。维基百科和Google Scholar等早期的工具被图书馆员广泛使用，它们让人们意识到，传统的大学图书馆和大学图书馆员只是一种昂贵的奢侈品。
与此同时，大学图书馆之死得到颂扬，它被很多人看作是一种进步，以及是信息在逻辑上的下一个发展阶段。
总而言之，如果末代图书馆员过于迷恋构筑通向未来的现实道路，而没有追踪最新的发展趋势，而且他们又漫不经心的高喊“图书和图书馆长存”或者“人们永远需要图书馆员告诉他们如何使用信息”这样的口号，那么大学图书馆完全可能会有死掉的那天。我们永远都不知道怎样的治疗是有用的。图书馆员种下了因，必然要承受毁灭自己的结果。
作者是阿尔弗雷德大学的辅导馆员。
以下是竹帛斋主的博文评论：
《The Chronicle of Higher Education》于本月初发表了Brian T.Sullivan撰写的《Acwdemic Library Autopsy Report, 2050》（大学图书馆尸检报告，2050）一文，“图林中文译站”的Nalsi在第一时间迅速给予了翻译，译文题目为《图书馆尸检报告2050》，去掉了“大学”二字，于是囊括了公共、高校、科技等各个类型的图书馆，搞得有点尸横遍野的味道。拜读了英文原稿和中文译稿后，除了对图林中文译站的各位同仁及时报道国外图书馆学研究进展和翻译文笔的老到表示一如既往的称赞以外，对这篇文章本身和文章的原创者，斋主的确不敢恭维。那不过是像拾荒者一样在学术场地的角角落落捡来堆在一起的一些陈词滥调，然后在这垃圾堆前竖立了一块耸人听闻、哗众取宠的“尸检报告”招牌而已。
历史和事实已经反复证明：尸检报告撰写者永远都会死在图书馆的前头，而尸检报告最终不过是尸检报告撰写者为自己准备的学术祭文而已。
以下是我本人的见解：
虽然不知道原作者是出于怎样的一种用心写下了这篇文章，但全文字里行间渗透着对图书馆学未来命运的“关切”，虽然这种关切读来让人森然。现实是图书馆学确实面临着前所未有的挑战，而且图书馆学应对挑战的正确与否将直接关系到其未来走向。但是不能简单地将图书馆的价值定位在这间小房子里，而所谓的“尸检报告”大概是在这样一个假设的基础上得出的。
信息管理学院 2010级图书馆学硕士 刘莎转载
