Lancaster Article

What is most interesting about this article isn’t what Lancaster predicted correctly but what he got wrong or didn’t consider with respect to the future of library automation. Lancaster doesn’t so much discuss the future of libraries as talk about the situation of “science communication” as it was and suggests and ideal future that doesn’t necessary include libraries.

Lancaster seems to use the phrases “electronic information system” and “paperless information system” interchangeably but we know today that print and electronic formats exist side by side. Why would he be so confident that the switch between to two would be complete by 2000? Lancaster takes for granted that technology would match the rate of development in areas such as databases and on-line systems to the point where it could replace print items. Even I am surprised that devices such as the Kindle or others that utilize comfortable to read e-paper haven’t caught on. Lancaster also assumes that there would be a need for all publications to be electronic. He was very optimistic about the economic effects of electronic services too. As if publishers and distributors weren’t going to look out for their interests and were going simply charge less as cost of automation decreased. Maybe Lancaster vision was more of a well organized information Co-op made up of private electronic file sharing?

I liked Lancaster’s idea about the SDI service that would anticipate what new documents one might find interesting and then send an abstract so you could decide if you wanted the full text or not. This would fit nicely into his pay-as-you-go plan but it also would take away the browsing factor. Not just in terms of paging through a journal but also while conducting your own search when you have to think critically about search terms and the value of search results.