President’s Column

At the beginning of this New Year I cannot help but think of David Bowie’s song “Changes.” The lyrics “Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, turn and face the strain, Ch-ch-changes…” echo in my mind more and more as each day passes. Every day those of us in the library profession are presented with something new — opportunities for growth, experimentation, and exploration. But this has been the nature of libraries since the beginning of recorded knowledge. I am sure many of you have seen the quote on T-shirts or Facebook, “Change is good, you go first.” With that in mind I am always impressed with libraries that are brave enough to be the first to make changes in traditional library service or be the first to try out new things like open source information management systems. Kudos to everyone who has embarked on an adventure like Evergreen (the open source system developed by the Georgia PINES consortium).