Exploratory Description Walt Crawford Problem Libraries must deal with an ever-changing array of media, media equivalents, and technological support for media and information. In any plausible future, changing media and technology will continue to be a factor in every active library. Older media require conservation and preservation decisions, particularly when and if the supporting technology begins to disappear. Libraries and librarians have all too many sources of advice in these areas, but many sources are advocates rather than advisers.
Centers tend to be for a specific technology or medium.
Futurists tend to favor simplistic solutions and to overlook the special role and needs of libraries. Proposal There may be a role for a center on changing media and technology as they affect libraries. This description offers some possibilities toward a realization of that concept, partly as a way of exploring such possibilities, partly as a way of uncovering the worth and salability of the concept itself. An equal commitment to communicating the results of that awareness in a timely and useful fashion. Stuff and Nonsense One motive for this description is to see whether it should be shot down.