The article on digital libraries' challenges opens with the observation that "we live in interesting times". As is often the case when I hear that expression, I can't help but wonder whether it's meant as a positive or a negative. Carnegie Mellon's development of "integrated speech, image, video, and language understanding software" sounds like an interesting positive. When the interesting negatives come along, I guess we'll just have to reach for the tools "in our armamentarium".
The article on digital libraries' origins seems to dramatize the conflict between librarians and computer scientists. I'm not sure what the big fuss is about. Then again, I'm still not even sure what digital libraries are all about. Is there anything more to them than catalogs, finding aids, and digital media accessible from afar? That all sounds like old hat at this point, as opposed to something worth fighting about.
In the article on institutional repositories, Clifford Lynch does a good job of describing the kinds of services that librarians need to provide in order to be effective. Among other duties, we should capture events digitally, open up new forms of communication, and ensure that patrons know what materials are available to them. The main idea is that we ought to be making information as easily accessible as we can, and that seems like a reasonable goal.
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I agree with you there Rand, a librarians job is pretty challenging but the one thing that stays the same is change...so cliche I know. But the job is the same as it has always been just has to be done to meet ever evolving needs.
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