Faculty and students from Simmons’ Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) were featured in this Boston Globe article, “Checking out the future,” by Sam Allis. Here’s an excerpt:

“Tomorrow’s librarians face a two-year graduate school curriculum freighted with technology courses that didn’t exist 10 years ago, courses that will likely be replaced by others within a year or two. The future of libraries is a constantly evolving digital landscape, and technical literacy, as it is in so many other fields, is absolutely essential to find a job in a brutal job market…

…While the core mission of librarians hasn’t changed — they are still committed to provide information to patrons who need it, wherever they are — most everything else has.”

This is more or less what I say when confronted with the “libraries are dying” sentiment. They aren’t dying; the core mission, to provide equal access to information, still remains and is just as relevant as ever. Not all of that information is contained solely in books anymore, however; we have to keep pace with technology and use it to our advantage. Libraries are not dying – they are  evolving.