I've been thinking about the various barriers that inhibit academic libraries from launching into the 2.0 world. I've read plenty of articles and blog postings about this, as we all probably have done. We could all make lists of the things that function as barriers to innovation, including institutional, individual, cultural, technological, and financial factors. Unfortunately, there is no lack of impediments.

As long as the list may be, I have yet to see anyone mention a factor that might also be in play in academic libraries: that some of our librarians see users as a captive audience. According to this viewpoint, the libraries on campus are the only game in town so the push to transform is not compelling. The campus provides an endlessly refreshed supply of users, so we'll always have a thriving business. The library is a monopoly, like the campus food service or bookstore. It's cornered the market on the things a library has to offer. If you want to take advantage of these things, there is just one place to go. There is no competition.

Is there any truth to the prevalence of this sentiment? If so, I doubt that any academic librarian would admit to thinking this way. Besides, I wonder if the thought might be unconscious, and that some of us simply assume that our monopoly status protects us. No campus administration will abolish or outsource its entire library system.

The irony is, we're very serious about providing the highest quality services to our users. But look at what's happening to us.

What's happening, more quickly than most of us could have imagined, is that the library is steadily losing ground as the center of scholarly communication on campus. Third parties on the Internet have penetrated our presumably safe territory. Libraries face a very serious and accelerating challenge.

Do academic libraries have a captive audience? Yes, but this audience is being drawn away from us and the situation will probably get worse. If things keep on going as they are, in ten years' time we'll still have users, but the disjunction between our information culture and theirs will be vast. We'll have a captive audience, all right, but one that will use us grudgingly, that will not enjoy dealing with our off-putting, complex, rigid information systems that are light years behind the interactive, participatory, open systems that define their information culture. I'm very taken by Roy Tennant's remark in the December 15, 2006 issue of Library Journal that "Academic libraries might just have a window of opportunity to leap into a future where we add value to our institutions in ways we’ve never imagined before or are only beginning to envision. But that window may already be in the process of slamming shut."

Not too long ago, my dean told me that a few subcommittees were being formed by a University Senate committee on libraries and information systems. The faculty showed a clear preference for joining the information systems committees because these were considered more engaging than the committee for the libraries. This is a sad commentary, but an unsurprising one. I see this as exactly indicative of the challenge ahead of us: to become an insitution that is so compelling that faculty will compete to join our committees - and that students will be enthused to use.