The library will continue to acquire information and serve as a conduit to information in all its forms to meet the needs of the university community. Librarians will be challenged to provide systems which will support convenient and coherent access to an increasingly diverse collection of resources and services. As change accelerates, the overarching goal will be to create an environment which offers a seamless interface to materials in all disciplines. The library of the future will require the traditional evaluative skills of librarians in addition to new technological sophistication. Increasingly crucial is the library's role in teaching the novice researcher to be analytical and discriminating in his use of information.
Collections are paramount to achieving the mission of future libraries.
ULS will be responsible for selecting, acquiring, organizing, managing , and ensuring continued access to the materials and resources it offers to support the teaching and research activities of our users. Collections of depth and breadth will be developed and managed by a team of professionals possessing subject expertise, technological expertise, and an understanding of changing patterns of scholarly communication in the disciplines. Rapidly changing technologies and multiple formats and access modes make the process of developing collections more complex. Thus, building and managing future collections will continue to be a staff-intensive process placing greater demands on ULS's human resources and budget. Print based collections will be dominant in many disciplines for at least a decade, but the increasing availability and the costs of digital materials may account for half or more of the total acquisitions budget in the next five years.