The issue of promoting these resources is also near and dear to our hearts as librarians. In order for our users to know what is available in electronic format, we must develop innovative ways to promote electronic products. Increasing availability of electronic resources has encouraged migration from print indexes and abstracts to electronic and full-text databases. While databases are a great innovation, they are very expensive and pose problems for librarians. One of the problems broached in the discussion was that of statistics reporting.
Librarians use statistics in many ways, including retention decisions for serials.
However, we encounter a lack of standardization in the reporting of statistics. No solutions were reached, as this is a new area of inquiry, but many suggestions were offered. The discussion continued with speculation about what the library of the future would bring, from its architecture and aesthetics to its content and personnel. Kimberly Douglas spoke of the future library fostering a strong relationship between the librarian and the user. The library of the future, Kimberly added, should also focus on integrating print and electronic, not allowing them to be mutually exclusive entities.