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"So long as....the machines are not permitted to dictate"

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THE FIRST PERSON I REMEMBER TELLING ME
that the computer would revolutionize libraries died more
than 20 years ago. He was the great library historian and
futuristJesse Hauk Shera. In the arrogance of my early
forties,just emerging from the Sixties and a midlife funk, I
dismissed his prediction as the visionary enthusiasm of an
aging academic who had begun to believe all the hyperbole
others said about him. As was so often the case with him,
Shera was absolutely right. It is too bad he didn't live to see
how far we have taken the prediction that he worked so
hard to validate.
Shera was not a techie and never bought all the hype that
surrounded the library field's entry into a digital world.
A research scholar and scientist, he saw the potential for
librarianship in information technology. He tried to build
information retrieval systems yet at the same time was a
sober and sharp critic of the faddists, commercial hucksters,
and techie boosters who would and often did take us down
expensive and obscure roads on our way to the future.
In theJanuary 1, 1976 special issue of LJ, compiled to
celebrate our first century, Shera assessed progress up to that
time: "The advent of the computer and the adaptation of
automation to library procedures are compelling librarians
to analyze, more thoroughly than they have done in the
past. what they are doing and to ask if it should be done....
All this can be most beneficial to librarianship so long as
machines and the demands of machines are not permitted
to dictate the character of and the limitations upon our
professional services" (Jesse H. Shera, "Failure and Success:
Assessing a Century," LJ 1/1/1976, p. 281-287).
That advice from Shera has taken on more relevance than
I expected when I edited the article so many years ago. I've
observed more than the overseling of the first systems,
many of which were just a baby step ahead of the manual
methods they replaced. I've watched while expected savings,
usually in personnel, simply got lost in the need for human
support and the cost of system operations. I've seen great
successes, too: the birth and growth of OCLC, of a hundred
consortia and networks, and, of course, the development of
thousands of online information sources and services.
As amply demonstrated in the netConnect supplement you
received with this issue, this technological progress points to
the wondrous opportunity for ever-improving library
service.We've achieved better user access, better control of
the world's information, better reference and inventory
tools, better consortia to help libraries work together, and
much more.
Yet, still hidden in some of that technological promise, is
the oversell of the huckster, the excessive enthusiasm of the
booster, and the hyperbole that nearly always accompanies
change as radical as that which we now face. Opportunists
abound in the promotion and installation of new
technology.
When you assess new technological promises-from
RFID to Google's digitization of libraries full of books,
from the iPod to online open access journals-it is crucial
to keep Shera's advice in mind. Don't be bowled over by
the noise of those introducing you to the next wave of
technological change, and remember to look at the new
devices and their output for what Shera called, in that same
LJ article, "the philosophical synthesis of the library
profession." If we can examine our future through Shera's
rigorous yet optimistic eye, we will surely find, as he did,
great opportunity and a great future for librarianship-
especially if we heed his warning and we don't allow the
technology to define the profession.
John N.Berry III,Editor-in-Chief
jberry@reedbusiness.com
I

8 I LEBRAPYJOURNAL I APRIL 15,2005 (SEE LJ ARCHIVES, NEWS, AND MORE AT WWW.LIBRARYJOURNAL.COM I

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: Check Change with Shera

SOURCE: Libr J 130 no7 Ap 15 2005
WN: 0510501872001

Copyright (2002) Reed Business Information, a division of Reed

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