Beyond the Library of the Future: More Alternative Futures for the Public Library

Citation

Hendry, J.D. (1999), "Beyond the Library of the Future: More Alternative Futures for the Public Library", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 2, pp. 95-111. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.2.95.2

Library and information science may occasionally seem baffling in its more arcane complexities. It does not usually leave me disconcerted, however; but I confess to some disconcertion in examining this work. Shuman is a futurist, and goes to some lengths to explain this. He then invents a series of fictional scenarios to get libraries to explore the future of libraries, and developments such as virtual reality, robots, time travel, computer viruses and security. First of all, however, we are given a long introductory chapter “Introduction to the Study of the Future”. Here Shuman “explains” what futurists do. However, if an explanation means helping someone else to understand or comprehend, then either I or the explanation is at fault. For I really did not understand. Or perhaps it was simply that I did not see the point. Nevertheless, I persevered.

There then follow chapters entitled “Experiences ‘R’ Us”, in which we find ourselves in the year 2022 and in an institution, formerly called a public library, now renamed the “Cybrary”. The next chapter is “It’s about time” and is certainly futuristic. Then “One touch of virus” and “After the power went off”. There is more.

Is this work an allegory, a vivid work of the imagination, or merely tedious? Finally, it is a relief – relatively speaking – to come to the final section, entitled “Future quotes”. With such nuggets as: “I have seen the future – and was being repaired”; or “Perhaps the best thing about the future is that it comes a day at a time”!The exclamation mark is mine. Public Library Bookfunds are scarce enough, and I wouldn’t recommend that within that context, this book be purchased. Even if bookfunds were plentiful, I still don’t think I could recommend purchasing the book. It seems to me only to be an exercise in self‐indulgence.