Library Dilemma Revisited

When I first started out in the corporate world, a professional lifetime ago, one of the most meaningful orientation messages to me was projected onto a screen from an 8 ½” x 11” transparency using an old-time, overhead projector. When did you last use such a transparency, or its flatbed projector? That gets to my point today – technology “A” phases out, technology “B” in; corporation “A” goes out of business, “B” in, often. On that transparency were the names of fifty companies. The presenter asked if we recognized any of the names. I recognized most of them. Others in the audience did as well. The presenter then told us that 47 of the 50 were no longer in business. That point stuck with me throughout my whole career in corporate R&D, and it sticks with me now as a Library Board …