Librarian: Year 2025
I am a librarian at the Wake Forest ZSR libarary. A lot has changed in the past 10 years, more than you would think. For starters, the Thinkpad has been eliminated, those terrible pieces of plastic couldn’t function as calculators back and the day and are not missed. Everyone today has been issued their own Windows 19 tablet with all the latest programs and apps. Technology has updated all-together. The millions of books in our library have been scanned and available on our databse. The only books available are old textbooks and historical books like the 1932 3000 page dictionary on the 6th floor.
The budget for the library has been cut in half over the past 10 years. With the book being available on the ZSR database the staffing and storage space in the library has been decreased. Some view this as a negative, but I see it as a positive. I am more efficient than librarians of the past, and since everything is online there is simple less staff required to sort books.
The library itself has been recontructed to be that the first 4 floors are classrooms, specializing in computer science, library science, and the new engineering program instituted at Wake. The top 4 floors are where the books are stored.
Our world has changed, books are disappearing, however, there is no chance they will ever become obsolete. Books will always have a place in society, just not as significant as before. Paper waste has increased though; with all sources available online, people are printing more to annotate. There are clear advantages and setbacks to this new life I am living. I feel like my position has altered in library science, but my job is not pointless.
