Part 2 of the Trends panel focused on trends in the next six months to a year. This is where things seemed to get a little sci-fi-spooky, with predictions ranging from Star Trek–style materialization of common objects (in six months to a year) to computer screens that have better quality display than print magazines.
Here's what the panelists had to say about imminent library trends:
Joan Frye Williams kicked off the second part of the discussion, predicting that 3D home fabrication—a niche, geek market right now—would become more popular over the next year. Fabbing, as it’s called among the hobbiests, blurs the line between information about a thing and the thing itself, because librarians would have an ability to not only store plans, diagrams, and blueprints, but they would also have the capability to build a physical product. This trend would usher in new ways to look at intellectual property rights, and librarians would need to garner new skills in design in order to serve patrons.
Cindi Trainor predicted that in the next six months to a year, the issue of anonymity versus openness would continue to grow in importance. With Facebook becoming more and more of a cultural artifact, libraries in the future may want to archive the information. However, the rights to the information may not be available to us, or not without great cost.
Monique Sedze noted that cloud computing would continue to grow and will define how libraries use their “back of the room” IT staff. If most of the heavy lifting that they do now is moved to the cloud, there would be no need for hardware, software, and other system updates. IT staff can embed themselves into the rest of library services.
Jason Griffey made two predictions about e-books: On the one hand, e-ink will continue to get cheaper, and LCD tablet displays like the iPad will continue to offer a better and better experience. Griffey predicts a sub-$100 e-ink reader by Christmas 2010 and a $50 reader by this time next year. On the other end, the technology behind iPhone 4’s high-density display will make its way into the next generation iPad—this is certain. Soon the density (in points per inch) of an LCD display will be higher than that of most print magazines.
Lorcan Dempsey talked about discovery layers and how, as they continue to represent more and more of the library, their perception will change in the minds of library users. Soon, they’ll come to represent the whole library. This trend will bring along with it a need to integrate other services, such as programming information, into the discovery layer.
John Blyberg predicted that open source library systems would experience what Seth Godin calls the “dip” over the next six months to a year. That is, the OS ILS, after a period of rapid growth, will experience some growing pains. If they overcome those growing pains. Blyberg identified four pain points: lack of functionality, no guarantee that grant money will continue to fund them, organizations supporting them will reach capacity, and the maturation of the advocacy process surrounding them.