A library existential crisis not involving Google

Librarians face existential crisis

I don't think they are using the term "existential crisis" quite correctly. Have they read Camus, Sartre? Existentialism's main inquiry is not "do I/should I exist?", let alone should librarians or librarians exist. Ok, off the French literature soapbox, for now!

The question of whether government documents should exist in print form is a very big one. Sharper minds than mine have expressed "concerns about the credibility and archiving of electronic documents."

I still haven't gotten over the study that showed that online citations aren't aging well. There's all kinds of electronic resource issues. My favorite example is the City Directories electronic resource that used to be available from Primary Source. It was a genealogist's wet dream. Gale bought Primary Source, and discontinued the electronic resource. Good thing MPOW didn't throw away the Philadelphia City Directories on microfiche!

Of course, we are now being told that we can toss bound volumes and microfilm that are covered by JSTOR. (I do try not to let the words "independent self-sustaining not-for-profit organization" strike too much fear in my heart, really.)

GOVPUBs are a scarier concern all around in these United States. Librarians sort of won this round, that is that "GPO officials said they would continue printing the current list of tangible titles at least through 2006." Expect I'll be posting more on this.