So you would like to hear my vision of my library in 2010? My first reaction is that its only three years away – not long at all, I had better get busy. I am new to my current position and this is my attempt at thinking through my first three year plan.

My vision is not about my library as a place but about my services. My library is already no longer about a collection in a place. The place where I sit is called an “Information Services Point” but I need to get the information services to where my clients are, into their work-spaces. Not just offering training in their offices but services which are integrated into their electronic and virtual work-spaces.

I need to develop and establish relationships and conversations. I have already heard that my clients need simpler interfaces to the huge range of information tools that we have gathered, they need ways to manage their information overloads and they need ways to connect with each other to foster interdisciplinary research.

Like Fiona I will need to acquire skills in GIS and data mining just to be able to talk with my clients. I have already had a client tell me that he needs to use data-mining and there are no longer maps in my library for a reason. I need to get to know the information management tools they are using everyday. I am learning Procite and Endnote well enough to offer training but how many are using BibTeX instead? I have found one group already.

My organisation is talking about getting my team involved in setting up an institutional repository and my team is starting to use a wiki. I need to look at whether my clients use RSS, IM and social networks and, if they are, then I need get our services into those spaces. I need to look at the bestpractises of the universities, their services to their researchers but also their students. Their students are our future researchers. Those changes would be necessary just to catch up. I need to do more than catchup, I need to get innovative. My clients are, so I need to be also. Then I need to be constantly in the loop, constantly aware of where our clients are moving and be prepared to move there along with them or, better, leading the way, to show them better ways of retrieving, organising and (as Fiona said) adding value to the information that they need. Actually, that last bit was in my job description.