What’s your Library 2020?

Cover of Library 2020: Today's Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow's Library, edited by Joe Janes (2013)

When’s the last time you got something fun in your mailbox? For me, the downside of the email generation is that most days, my mailbox is more likely to have junk mail or bills than something fun. But yesterday, it proffered a copy of Library 2020: Today’s Leading Visionaries Describe Tomorrow’s Library, edited by Joe Janes of the University of Washington (but still legendary in Ann Arbor for having founded the Internet Public Library during his time at the U-M School of Information).

As Joe explains in his introduction, the book is a collection of vibrant, opinionated, short essays. Each contributor was asked to describe their vision for libraries in the near-future: the year 2020 in around 2000 words or less. The contributors were given lots of flexibility in terms of style, tone, scope, and voice.

It’s such a fun exercise to think just beyond the typical five-year plan; I highly recommend you take a stab at this exercise yourself (leave a comment here if you do so online, OK?). Whether you envision your own workplace, your community library, or a dreamy not-yet-made place/space/site, it’s awfully invigorating to let yourself think.

How do I know? Because I was fortunate enough to be included in the volume. It was exciting to think and write boldly, and when I saw who my co-authors were, it was a whole new jolt of energy. So while I’m hardly objective, I think you’ll enjoy this shot in the arm.

The contributors cover the continuum from graduate student to IMLS director and two former ALA presidents, plus others in-between.

  • The annoyed librarian
  • Kristin Fontichiaro
  • Elisabeth A. Jones
  • Clifford A. Lynch
  • Sarah Houghton
  • Stephen Abram
  • Courtney Greene
  • Marie L. Radford
  • James W. Rosenzweig
  • Michael Crandall
  • Molly Raphael
  • Lynn Silipigni Connaway
  • Marcellus Turner
  • Ruth Faklis
  • Susan Hildreth
  • Stacey A. Aldrich & Jarrid P. Keller
  • John Dove
  • Bill Ptacek
  • Loriene Roy
  • Josie Barnes Parker
  • Mary Ann Mavrinac
  • Peter Morville
  • Daniel Chudnov
  • Joseph Janes

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See the book on the publisher’s web site.

Read an interview with Joe Janes in Publishers Weekly.

And just for fun, here’s a plug in Swedish.

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