Exciting year ahead

For children's librarians, 2011 opened with a buzz of news about new books, new ebooks, apps for libraries, and endless stories about how publishing is changing. At the same time that libraries around the country are running Mock Newbery contests to vote on which book will win the coveted medal next week, librarians, authors and publishers are wondering whether children's books have a future. Over the past few months we have seen stories in the New York Times about the death, or near-death, of picture books as a staple part of young children's lives, we have heard about and probably sampled the iPad app of Alice in Wonderland that has set new standards for pictorial beauty and interactive innovation, and most of us have listened to complaints from grandparents and others about how children don't read the old books any more. What does all of this mean for children's library services? Will library collections change drastically as children read ebooks on iPads or one of the other ubiquitous tablet ereaders? Should we shift our print budget to ebooks? What about the youngsters who still prefer print on paper? And more important, what about the parents and other taxpayers who see no need for a library when their children seem totally uninterested in traditional books? In these bad economic times we don't want to make big mistakes with the money entrusted to us, but can anyone tell us what the future holds?

Probably no one knows what actually will happen, and predictions are notoriously bad, but the American Library Association conference starting tomorrow in San Diego, CA, will at least address some of the questions from a library point of view. I am eager to get there to attend some of the meetings and listen to the opinions of other librarians. Equally important, I'll be spending a lot of time going around the exhibits to see what publishers are offering. These are the people who are already making guesses about the future. How do they read the tealeaves? I hope to find out as much as I can and will report some of my findings here during the next week or so.