2007年VOA标准英语-Librarians Meeting in Texas See Future for Thei

By Greg Flakus
Houston, Texas
27 March 2007
 
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One of the foundations of any civilized¹ community is that storehouse of information and knowledge known as the library.  But in the digital age, many people are finding information on the Internet or on digitized media that can only be accessed with a computer.  At the same time, the sheer amount of information available has grown enormously.  All of this was the focus of a recent conference at Rice University in Houston, Texas on the future of libraries. 

 
The traditional library held books and periodicals printed on paper.  But much of the information found in libraries today is found on computers.

With so much information available at the click of a mouse, what role will libraries play in the future?  That was a top question at the DeLange Library Conference, where even many participating librarians could not resist surfing the Web while listening to lectures.

The challenge of the digital age was very much on the mind of conference organizer and Rice University librarian Chuck Henry. "The library, as an institution that has been around for thousands of years, it is undergoing transformations² that are really unprecedented³."

 
Rice University librarian Chuck Henry
Henry notes that just in the past few years humankind has produced more information than had been created in all the preceding millennia⁴. Preserving and keeping track of all that data is a major challenge, even though much of it is now stored on multiple computer servers around the world.

"Even though there is a great deal of redundancy out there, most information is still subject to loss,” says Henry. “It is really a question of how do you manage the billions upon billions of Web pages and the tens of millions of books and journal articles and art images and audio files out there now in a coherent way so that they will be preserved and they will be maintained over time. We don't have policies for that right now."

The other question is what role should librarians play in an age when so much information is online? 

Bryan Goodwin is a reference librarian at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.  He says students and researchers still need help.  "Often our questions are now fewer, but more involved.  They have already tried to look elsewhere and they are running up dry and now they are turning to us to say, 'I need your help because I cannot find the information I am looking for’."

It is the human role that Goodwin believes will sustain the library as an institution in the years ahead.  “Human beings, basically, are social creatures and they like that kind of interaction as much as separating and going off and being on their computers by themselves."

The thirst for knowledge and the need to manage information has been a part of civilization for thousands of years.  Just ask Egyptian librarian Noha Adly. Her hometown is associated with the oldest name in library history.

 
Egyptian librarian Noha Adly
"We have an institution with a very old name.  The Library of Alexandria is the oldest library in the world.  Sixteen hundred years after its destruction, we now have the new Library of Alexandria, which is a masterpiece and a very challenging project."

The loss of the ancient library at Alexandria is still bemoaned⁵ by historians and researchers today and underscores the fragility of the media on which information is stored.

But Noha Adly believes libraries are the foundation of any nation's efforts to enhance development and progress.  "Libraries, really, these are the wealth of the information that is nourishing all the researchers and these are the seeds of any country, really," she says.

Adly and other librarians see an exciting future for libraries, both in the virtual world of computers and in the buildings where the knowledge is stored, organized and managed.

1 civilized   

a.有教养的，文雅的

参考例句：

• Racism is abhorrent to a civilized society. 文明社会憎恶种族主义。
• rising crime in our so-called civilized societies 在我们所谓文明社会中日益增多的犯罪行为

2 transformations   

n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换

参考例句：

• Energy transformations go on constantly, all about us. 在我们周围，能量始终在不停地转换着。 来自辞典例句
• On the average, such transformations balance out. 平均起来，这种转化可以互相抵消。 来自辞典例句

3 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

4 millennia   

n.一千年，千禧年

参考例句：

• For two millennia, exogamy was a major transgression for Jews. 两千年来，异族通婚一直是犹太人的一大禁忌。
• In the course of millennia, the dinosaurs died out. 在几千年的时间里，恐龙逐渐死绝了。

5 bemoaned   

v.为（某人或某事）抱怨( bemoan的过去式和过去分词 )；悲悼；为…恸哭；哀叹

参考例句：

• The farmer bemoaned his loss. 农夫抱怨他所受到的损失。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He only bemoaned his fate. 他忍受了。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）