Editorial

摘要

This special issue of New Library World focuses on the future of libraries and the strategies which they should best adopt in order to respond effectively to significantly changed circumstances and requirements. A call for papers was issued, and a number of authors were directly commissioned. The results give a strong indication of the themes, trends and directions that need to be considered over the next decade and beyond. There has always been discussion about the future of libraries and librarianship, and yet rarely, if ever, has the future been so difficult to forecast. It is easy to suggest that there is no obvious mainstream future for libraries of any kind, given the inexorable rise of the Internet, the concomitant replacement of traditional modes of communication by digitally based and end-user driven systems and services and the ever-tightening financial constraints that lead to radical reviews of the profession of librarianship and librarians' future roles.