EDUCAUSE Review Articles; Libraries and Technology; and Articles, Papers, and Reports

In March 2007, the University of Michigan Medical School (UMMS) purchased Wolverine Island in Second Life (SL). From even the early planning stages, the Health Sciences Libraries (HSL) were deeply involved in the University of Michigan (UM) SL activities. The primary role of health sciences libraries is to support the core functions of the academic and healthcare institutions they serve. Traditionally, this has taken place through activities related to collections, services, instruction, and reference in environments related to education, research, clinics, and service and outreach.1 Here we will explore in what way these roles are similar or different for an academic health sciences library working in virtual worlds, with highlights of our engagement and immersion in SL.

The following excerpt is based on an interview conducted by Gerry Bayne, EDUCAUSE multimedia producer, with James G. Neal,Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian at Columbia University.

The author provides a glimpse into the future without academic libraries and how that will affect the students and faculty.

"Tremendously exciting large-scale digitization projects are opening up cultural memory as embodied in our library special collections, our museums and archives, and the public-domain segment of our published literature to unprecedented levels of access and use."

Experiments are underway to provide library users with a browsable, electronic Table of Contents for books that are shared in a distributed collection environment.

"Informatics support has some elements of IT knowledge, some elements of library and information science expertise, and some elements of data management skills.... This calls for a team approach including both libraries and IT organizations but also going beyond both at some level."

Deep into the digital age, academic libraries have relinquished much of their fundamental and sustaining role. For most people, including academicians, the library—in its most basic function as a source of information—has become overwhelmingly a virtual destination.

Technology has led to more modernization than transformation of the library, resulting in some major disconnects between many of today's academic libraries and Net Gen students.