摘自 www.educause.edu 2010年review In "Information Technology and Tomorrow's University: A President's Confessions and Advice," Jolene Koester anticipates the question of what information technology has to do with such broad issues. She answers: " Remember that information technology exists to support, empower, and advance the institution's educational mission and business processes ." Finally, Patrick Masson addresses these processes in "Open Governance in Higher Education: Extending the Past to the Future," In the words of Koester, a university president: "Those of you in information technology have the potential for the most exciting present and future work in our colleges and universities. Out of your expertise and vision, in partnerships with those in the rest of the institution and in many cases with other institutions, will emerge major transformation and redefinition of the role and contributions of the college and university. You are at the center of what will change our higher education institutions." The concept of an academic library as an independent, physical home of analog materials that are accessible mostly by the surrounding collegiate society has a long tradition and is profoundly reinforced by the presence and persistence of the higher education institution itself: colleges and universities, especially the more prominent ones, define themselves by exclusivity and singularity of purpose. E-Content columns in 2011 will in part explore the new kinds of thinking that can lead to very large-scale solutions. I imagine that all of the following will be common to these efforts: strong regional coalitions that bring together diverse institutions; goals of federating shared resources and interests, including collections, technology, and expertise; and a genuine, volitional dependency on other, participating institutions for the provision of what was once a locally owned and managed asset. These projects will likely also share an important tactical approach. They will mitigate the concern over loss of individuality—loss of "brand," in the common parlance—by keeping intact the level of tradition, history, and idiosyncrasy of the institutions involved and by building their interdependent alliances and collaborations within and among the services and programs that underpin research and teaching. This will be no easy task, but from a strategic vantage point, at least as I have come to understand it, there is no ambiguity: the future of academic libraries and higher education rests on the ability to reconceive 调和 scholarly communication holistically, with its various components (discovering, reconstituting, publishing, and sharing knowledge and keeping the manifestations of that knowledge securely preserved and accessible) understood as interrelated and interdependent. The inherited norms, customs, traditions, and institutions that have structured research and teaching now need to be constructively challenged, redefined, and subsequently reassembled. The next two decades could witness an extraordinary flourish of activity among colleges and universities focused on repositioning 存储 , consolidation 联合 , and convergence 汇聚 . And as with so many other aspects of the digital revolution, our future as a result of that activity will turn less on technological innovation than on informed and empathetic leadership.
标签: 知识服务
