Historically the library has been a place for subsidized and equal access to information. But as information supplants manufactured products as the major commodity, libraries are often on the losing end of legal battles to protect intellectual property as a common good. Current debates over copyright and intellectual property are taking place within the Department of Commerce, not the Department of Education. Privatization of knowledge. They are serving as bookstores for publishers.
Libraries exist at the boundary of the market and gift cultures.
The library needs a new model to sustain itself in the long-term, or it will relapse into management by attrition. In order to do this, the library needs to think about where it will be ten years from now, not just 6 or 12 months from now. The faculty have not been very responsive to concerns about the declining ratio of librarians to faculty. They consider this too low. Within the library, we need to discuss whether the current reward system for librarians reward individuals who take risks and incorporate flexibility into their daily practice.