Yes, yes, I know. I’m behind again, and everyone else in the library blogosphere has commented on this and moved on. What’s a busy librarian to do?

If you’re one of the handful of people who haven’t read the Darien Statements yet, I encourage you to check them out. Admittedly, there are one or two things that I think are a bit of a stretch (e.g., “The purpose of the Library is to preserve the integrity of civilization.” Um, OK. Maybe this is the go big or go home theory of libraries.). Overall, though, the authors do an admirable job of laying out a philosophy of libraries for the future.

What I really like about the Darien Statements is their positive outlook. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m sick to death of talking about all the things we’re NOT going to do–”we’re not going to catalogue”, “we’re not going to have collections”, “we’re not going to do in-person reference.” Bah. These are the same “we won’t be” statements I was hearing in library school ten years ago (and I stayed in the program anyway…not sure what that means). But guess what: we’re still doing all of them.

Are libraries changing? Absolutely. Is that change necessary? Definitely. Is it all doom and gloom? No. Libraries are in a period of very rapid evolution, and yes, there will be things that we stop doing. Does that really have to be our focus? As the Darien group put it, “Why we do things will not change, but how we do them will.” Let’s pick up the conversation from there.