Library managers analyze operations across a myriad of tasks, technologies and staff, mobilizing a patchwork of ever scarcer human and material resources to meet shifting demands, facilities and priorities. Management and design skills will always be crucial, even if in the future we won't be so constrained by leaky roofs and stuck elevators. The goal of selecting and organizing materials is always to get them into the hands of a present or future user. Over the past several years, we have seen a trend in the academic library where more librarians are shifted into public services as technical operations become streamlined and emphasis is on access to outside resources. Teaching and consultative skills are essential for effective information services, whether librarians are working with one person or a class of sixty.
Information literacy is a competency needed by all.
Librarians articulate logical and intuitive insights about information and develop concise syntheses and interconnected links. As subject specialists, librarians are positioned to identify emerging fields through observing new terminology, interdisciplinary publishing, and forms of scholarship that question traditional concepts. The librarian is a valued member of a research team, a colleague who tailors organizational schemes, advises on file management and customizes information services. Eventually , librarians might be assigned to individual academic departments or might operate as a collaborative unit, somewhere apart from the actual storage and processing of materials. These will be a fact of life, regardless of the mechanism of communication.